Girl Gone Granola

My New Gig

2012-02-01T20:59:00.000-08:00

And that would be as a freelance amateur goat gynecologist. Which is, of course, every bit as glamorous as it sounds. ;)

As I'd mentioned in a previous post, I was called to the home of my friend, B, to check on Fritzen's potential pregnancy, and to bring Miss Oreo back to the ol' ranch for a romantic rendezvous with our yearling buck, Barley.

In addition to checking on the fertility of B's does, I did a little look-see at my own goatie girls today.

Chardonnay is the one who is most obviously pregnant. Beyond being uncharacteristically girthy, she has recently started to bag up a bit. She's also got the floppy tail and the bulging bum-bum that tell me that she's probably within two weeks of kidding, give or take. Last year she kidded on February 10th and had beautiful twins, a boy & a girl.

Blue. Miss Blue has me wonderin'. Bill is 100% convinced that she's quite preggo, but I'm still not there yet. I'm... maybe 80% sure. She's as big as a house, but she tends toward the chunky end of the spectrum anyway. I think that I might have seen some fetal movement on her left flank today, but I just don't know. Her lady business is all poker face. No bulging, not in heat, no clues at all to what's going on in her generous little low-riding belly. Blue last kidded in November 2010, delivering a single sassy little buckling, Blackjack.

Hop (Chardy's yearling doe) is definitely not pregnant. She has somehow successfully managed to avoid her frisky brothers' many attempts to deflower her. Good girl.

Valentina ("Teeny", Fritzen's yearling doe) is also definitely not pregnant, but is very much in heat. I find it fascinating that she and her twin, Oreo, who have been separated by a few miles for going on two months now are still so synced-up, cycle-wise. We are debating on whether or not to breed her to Barley, her half-brother. We would only do so if we intended to harvest her kids, as we wouldn't want a line of inbreeding and re-inbreeding goats. We're not sure that we're up to harvesting a kid. That, in addition to the fact that we will, with my cousin's Alpine does joining our flock, have at least 3 mommies in milk has us leaning towards letting Teeny girl grow for another year before breeding her.

And so that's the scoop. We should be seeing the sproing! of little hooves shortly, but exactly when, no one knows. You know I'll keep you apprised. ;)

Chardonnay in her signature "head shot". Apparently my camera strap is delicious every time!

The unsinkable Auntie Blue with young Miss Hop

Fritzen and her daughters, Teeny & Oreo

Has your food been "slimed"?

2012-02-01T10:19:00.000-08:00

Photos and videos of a substance ominously named "pink slime" have been making the rounds on social networks and in headlines for a few months now. Most of these videos depict a bright pink colored paste that is comprised of mechanically separated meat. Sometimes it's chicken, sometimes beef, pork or turkey, but it is all destined for processed food products, some of which might end up in you or, more likely, your kids' bellies.

Don't believe it? I don't want to either, but here it is, the grisly truth:

If you or your family are eating processed foods that contain this gunk, you are not only eating "cuts" of meat that aren't fit for most dog foods, but you're also consuming a product that has been "cleaned" (aka - soaked in) ammonium hydroxide.

This aspect of the meat processing protocol is obviously not something that fast food restaurants or the USDA think that you need to know about, because they consider it a process, not an ingredient. Are they asking us to believe that no trace of the ammonia remains in the meat after it has been marinated in the stuff? Seriously?

Apparently so, because the USDA has not required any special labeling for processed meat products that have been treated thusly, and it is estimated that up to 70% of the ground beef on the market has been processed this way. The beef and chicken products in your child's school lunch have almost certainly been through this process and the people who choose to purchase this chemical drenched food on behalf of you and your kids have the nerve to refer to it as "safe" and "wholesome". !!!

Why would they put caustic chemicals in your food? Because the folks in charge of food safety at the USDA have decided that the minuscule chance that there could be E. coli or Salmonella contamination in your meat products necessitates carpet-bombing it with caustic sterilizers. If meat is raised, slaughtered and handled with care and common sense cleanliness practices instead of living it's life knee deep in sewage in a CAFO and then cranked through a rendering plant, the odds of it ever needing such extreme treatments are virtually none. Fear has brought us here, but isn't this "food" what we should be afraid of?

My very favorite food crusader, Jamie Oliver, breaks it down in the video below. Please watch, and better yet - show it to your kids. I'm very conscious of the food my kids eat, but watching this has made me want to redouble my efforts to keep these "foods" out of my kids' mouths and bellies.

I became a farmer in part to ensure that I knew exactly what was going into my family's mouths. Obviously, not everyone can take that route. The steps that anyone can take to avoid and reject this notion of food are these-

Stay informed! Read labels, ask hard questions. You have every right to know the story behind your food.

Advocate! Let the people who are making these food choices on behalf of us all know that these are unacceptable practices. Make your preference for truly wholesome, recognizable food known!

Reject! Refuse to eat or serve foods made with these highly processed ingredients. For me, this will mean packing my kids' lunches everyday. A great pass/fail test for food - if your Grandma wouldn't recognize the ingredients, don't eat it!

Upcycled Crafting: T-shirt Headband

2012-01-30T20:21:00.000-08:00

I have been having a mad love affair with Pinterest for the past few months. Have you too been sucked into it's shiny orbit?

In the event that you have not, Pinterest is "virtual pin board" loaded with brightly colored images of DIY projects, striking photographs, fashions finds and more. It goes beyond eye candy; for an easily dazzled thrifty crafter like me, it's more like eye crack.

And so, I've been self-medicating with gorgeous photographs of other folks' art and craft projects, and have pinned a whole mess of DIY goodies and crafts that I want to try my hand at. Today's venture was the "T-shirt Headband", using a few of my favorite elderly t-shirts.

The process is explained completely here, though I still had to find a YouTube video to get the hang of a 5-strand braid.

My first attempt was a herringbone-type braid, using 5 strands of 1" wide fabric (the salmon colored braid), followed by two goes with the 5-strand braid as shown in the video. They came ok for a newbie, I think -

The t-shirts that I used were probably not the best suited for this project. They had lost some of their elasticity in their old age, and the strands didn't really curl into themselves (as did the strands in the tutorial), leaving me with flatter pieces and the occasional visible raw edge.

I also had a spot of trouble keeping my tension consistent, but now that I feel like I have these braiding techniques figured out, I think my next few tries will come out better.

Lastly, here is my Lil' Peanut modelling my favorite of the lot-

:)

Winter To-Do's by Month

2012-01-25T20:53:00.000-08:00

January sort of blew by us this year, leaving us a bit behind on our farm chores checklist. February, short and sweet will hopefully bring us less madness in the weather department, a few baby goats and those first fearless leaders of Spring, crocuses. And March, well, March is always crazy, with 3 out of 4 of our family members celebrating birthdays, starting seeds, garden prep, etc. As always, I make a checklist of our must-do's then proceed to be completely freaked out by it! ;)

Our list of chores by month -

January -

*Storm Cleanup (a BIGGIE this year!) - assess, treat/trim trees as needed, clean up, sort wood/limbs into firewood, chipper fodder and goat snack piles. Set some big limbs aside for an epic mid-summer bonfire. :)

*Cut & Stack firewood

*Garden Planning & Seed Orders -Check!

*Turn Compost

*Replenish Emergency kit supplies -In progress. Costco here I come. :\

*Replenish Animal first aid/med kit in anticipation of kidding -Check!

*Purge Freezer -Also in progress. One Layer at a time...

February -

*Goats due to kid (Chardonnay/Blue)

*Start early seedlings indoors with heat mats/grow lights (late in month)

*Trim Trees & Shrubs

*Fence Building/Repair

March-

*Goats due to kid (Cassie's Alpine doe & doeling)

*Start up milking again

*Plant out Brassicas & Lettuces, weather permitting

*Order & Plant new trees, weather permitting

*Forage - Stinging Nettles & Dandelion, maybe mushrooms if the weather is right

Our plans for the months following depend a great deal on how well we manage to get these tasks ticked off in a timely fashion. As you might have noticed, we're adding two Alpine does to our goat herd. They are the sweet babies of my cousin, Cassie, whom we will be looking after for the foreseeable future. Both Alpines have been bred to an Oberhasli buck, so we're going to be dealing with an entirely new, much larger breed than we have in years past. The big upside is that they give really great milk and lots of it, so we should have cheese, cajeta and maybe even soap aplenty this year!

Cabin Fever Diaries - Dispatch #2

2012-01-20T19:46:00.000-08:00

Three days of fairly heavy snow were followed by a day and night of freezing rain. This is very bad news in the land of trees. :(

The snow that has accumulated on trees, power lines, etc., melts just enough to refreeze again as a clinging, solid crust on whatever it is adhered to. It doesn't take long for the weight to become more than the trees and wires can bear, and things start falling and collapsing.

One of two ornamental Japanese(?) willows that were thrashed by the weight of the cumulative snow & ice.

Last night while the power was out and the snow and ice were at the peak of their destructive potential, limbs and whole trees would snap all of a sudden with a crack like a rifle shot, followed by a thunderous rush of snow. Normally wispy evergreen branches and fronds came raining down on houses, cars and power lines. Each pop and crack woke me with a start, wondering if the house (surrounded on all sides by cedar, fir, maple and alder) would take a hit. Going from deep, exhausted sleep to fight-or-flight adrenalized panic a dozen times per night sucks.

Besides the fear of having timber fall on our heads while we slept, we fared just fine. Our wood stove is a beast, and we used it to warm ourselves, cook our food and melt snow for water when the well water ran out.

"White Out Soup" (aka - everything that needed to be cooked before it spoiled), the greatest coffee pot in the world, and tea water for Bill.

Our power is back - for now. And luxuries like flushing the toilet and being able to wash the dishes are back and will not soon be taken for granted, I assure you.

Cabin Fever Diaries

2012-01-19T09:55:00.000-08:00

Day 5 of ~~my incarceration~~ being snowbound

The freezing rain has come on top of the snow, weighing down the trees, power lines and rooftops, and making our driveway and road impassable for all but the most fortified of vehicles - the Redneck duelly.

We've managed to keep our wits about us thus far, but the isolation and dwindling food supply weigh heavy on our minds. Just this morning we ran out of cocoa - COCOA! What next, Panda Puffs?!?

The power has cut out and returned a few times already this morning, and the cracking sounds coming from the trees across the street have me all but convinced that our power will be out shortly. We have a small supply of firewood and will set up our sleeping area in the living room, around the wood stove if the heat goes.

As for food and drink- I'll be scouring the basement shortly for our camping supplies to retrieve the most coveted of all power-outage necessities - the camp coffee pot. Pray that I find it, lest I be left in increasingly close quarters with the family and grossly under-caffeinated to boot. NO ONE WANTS THAT.

To be continued....

Snowed in, Day 3

2012-01-18T15:53:00.000-08:00

Here in Western Washington, we're in the thick of what some folks are calling "Snowmageddon" (drama queens!) and our little farm is literally snowed in at the moment, thanks to a driveway that is on a negative grade, and a very diligent snow plow driver who has inadvertently capped our crazy driveway with a three foot wall of ice & snow.

Today is the fifth day that the kids have been home, and the third day of being snowbound. I'm hanging on to my wits by a thread and distracting myself with craft projects, chores and a whole lot of cooking and baking. So far so good, but with the threat of power outages looming, and the likelihood of the girls being home 24/7 until Monday at least, my joy of family togetherness is waning.

Oy.

Sir Fluffelbutt Saves the Day!

2012-01-11T10:00:00.000-08:00

Rex is already earning his LGD stripes! Last night he alerted us about a disturbance in the farm force, and Bill and I went to investigate. Long story short - Bill saw a red fox in the road, and my chicken security double-check revealed a few lapses on the chicken-locker-upper's part.

Luckily, Rex's heads-up was enough to get us outside in time to beat Mr. Fox to the punch. Big atta-boys and belly scratches were given, and the head of security went calmly back to his post (the front porch) to continue his watch. :)

Defender of the Flocks, at rest.

I have to say, even though Rexy isn't a purebred Pyr, he has been a kick-ass farm dog and companion, as promised by the wonderful people at the Great Pyrenees Rescue Society. We are so thankful to everyone who lobbied on Rex's behalf to rescue him and find him a good forever home.

Rest easy, Sweet Rexy. You are home.

Freezer Raid!

2012-01-10T09:12:00.000-08:00

I try to give the freezer a good purging around this time each year to a) Toss the funky stuff, and b) Use up last Spring/Summer/Fall's haul before the garden, forests and water give us more food for socking away. It also has the surprising effect of inspiring me to try some odd combinations and different sorts of recipes than I'd make on an average night. My freezer findings so far, and what I'll be making with them-

*Pork roast and other assorted pork products - bacon, sausage, ham, chops, etc., about 80 pounds worth! (from Aunt Alice's home grown Duroc barrow, "Turbo".)
*Dandelion Petals (for wine making)
*At least 5 pounds of organic blueberries, from the farm down the road
*Silver Salmon
*Pacific Sand dab (Flounder) from last summer's camping trip
*Nettle tea/broth
*Assorted wild berries - red huckleberry, Oregon grapes, salal
*Rhubarb
*Grated zucchini from Sweet Serena's garden (thanks, lady!)
*Pureed Pumpkin from our garden

And I haven't reached the bottom yet.

Tonight's dinner will be Pork Roast dressed with a huckleberry/balsamic reduction, served with zucchini cakes a la Andrea the Kitchen Witch and spinach salad.

I'll also be starting a few batches of wine here shortly, including more dandelion and rhubarb, and maybe some blueberry. I'm not sure if blueberry wine will be a great drinking wine, but if all else fails, I can turn it into vinegar. I'll probably (eventually) make some blueberry jam as well, though I'm still wayyyy burned out on canning just now.

Bill will probably end up smoking the last of the salmon, or else using it as crab bait if he determines that it is too old to use otherwise.

Between the pork, the fish and our (knock wood) constant supply of eggs, I shouldn't have to buy us much if any protein for the next month, maybe more. Think of the savings! :)

Do you do a routine freezer or pantry purge? What fascinating delights have you found hiding in your freezer's depths?

Rex, The Motivational Chewer

2012-01-05T09:08:00.000-08:00

This is Rex. Rexy is our new foster (soon to be adopted) livestock guardian dog/farm pooch. He is a Great Pyrenees mix who looks and behaves very much like a standard Pyr, with the exception of his pink nose and his lack of black "eyeliner" that is a hallmark of the breed.

I initially learned about Livestock Guardian Dogs (LGD's) at the same time that I was learning about keeping and caring for goats. There are many LGD's who have been bred for hundreds of years to protect the critters and people in their charge. The Great Pyrenees breed was developed and used in the Pyrenees mountains of France and Spain, as well as elsewhere throughout Europe, to guard sheep and other livestock from various predators. An LGD is not a herding dog. His job to to alert you to the threat/presence of predators and to keep predators at bay.

I found our fella through a Great Pyrenees rescue that works primarily out of Texas, where Pyr's are a favorite livestock guardian choice for ranchers. Unfortunately, because the dogs live out in the field with their flock, and are often not neutered or spayed, the result is unchecked breeding and an overwhelming abundance of Pyr's and Pyr mixes flooding Texas shelters.

Our boy was either picked up by or surrendered to the Ft. Worth animal shelter, where he lived for three months - an extraordinary length of time in a "kill shelter". He was repeatedly passed over for euthanasia because his sweet demeanor melted the hearts of his caregivers, and caused them to lobby on his behalf for more time to get him to a foster or forever home. They contacted SPIN (Saving Pyrs In Need), and Rex and another Pyr were rescued by Lynnette, a small-scale goat & chicken hobby farmer, just like me. She took him home to her pack and gave him the love and socialization that he'd missed out on for so long. She also managed to feed him up good - he came into the shelter weighing 51.5 lbs, and came to us weighing 65! He's still a lean boy, so I can't imagine him 15 pounds lighter. God bless foster parents of all kinds!

So our pup finally arrives here in the great northwest after a 5 day long trip from Texas. He's nervous, itchy and very tired. His first few days here were bumpy - he chewed into a computer cord, ruining it, ate two skeins of yarn, one shoe, one knitting project and the handle of a Care Bear umbrella. He also put his teeth on Livy, which gave us pause about whether or not he was going to be a good fit with our kids. Time and behavior modification (on all of our parts) has since convinced us that he is the right dog for our little place. He has twice alerted us at night to deer and possibly raccoons in the vicinity of the compost bins and goat pens, and has been "leaving his mark" all over the place, letting the foxes, raccoons, opossums and coyotes know that the era of easy pickins is over, and that there is a new carnivore in town. It's only been 10 days since he came home with us, but the chicken thief, whatever it was, hasn't struck again since.

So he's keeping us safe, as advertised, and seems to be sending me a message with his choice of chewing items - the computer cord, the yarn, the knitting needles - basically telling me, Mama, if you sit on your butt and ignore me, I will remove the things that are distracting you via CHOMP, so that you can play with me again.

Message received, buddy. Let's get out there and frolic with the goaties! :)

The Obligatory List of Goals for the New Year

2012-01-01T23:49:00.000-08:00

I don't do the whole resolution thing, never really have. I like to jot down a few ideas and plans for the coming year, but nothing that I'd go so far as to say that I am steadfastly resolute about making happen. Inflexibility equals anxiety for me, so I like the idea of a list of want-to's and try-to's better. It fits my ever-changing mood and general slackerish lifestyle better.

So here are my want-to, try-to and really oughta's for the coming year -

*Move and expand the veggie garden, which entails tilling up sod and soil that haven't ever been (oy!), setting up deer fencing, moving and spreading a metric s&!# ton of compost and manure, and building new raised beds. This is project numero uno in my book.

*Re-fence the pasture. (This is really Bill's project.) If we can let the goats out of their pens and give them the whole back acre+ to graze and nibble at their leisure, we'll save literally thousands on hay every year. This is Bill's project numero uno.

*Build a pole barn - another of Bill's projects. While our does have a nice house right now, our bucks & wether have completely destroyed theirs, making the building of a stout new barn with enclosed stalls, a milking parlor and hay/grain storage an increasingly pressing issue. The barn and pasture fencing are essentially one item in Bill's mind, but let's be honest - they are two huge undertakings unto themselves. Getting even just one of them done will be a big and costly job.

*Re-vamp the front yard according to the plans draw up by our landscape architect, Brighida. This project includes adding berms and trenches for better drainage, removing the current plants and shrubs that are ill-suited to their present location (and to our purposes) and replacing them with hand-selected varieties of native, rain-loving trees, shrubs and veggies that will take our front lawn from all maintenance and no food, to a low-maintenance, edible landscape. This project will be a spendy one, and therefore might not be in the cards for us this year, speaking realistically.

*Have all of our fruit trees professionally pruned and brought back into shape by an arborist.

*Expand our herd of milk goats (already under way!)

*Get set up for a pair of pigs in the Spring. Our windfall of lovely, free produce makes this project especially appealing and worthwhile to undertake asap. As an offshoot of this, seek out additional free waste food streams for piggy consumption - restaurant food waste, offal, etc.

*Plant more evergreen trees in the chickens' yard for future Christmas trees and for the lovely oxygen that we so enjoy.

*Explore further the requirements of raising turkeys. (This is loooooow on the list.)

*Learn more about the possibility of installing a hive or two of honeybees.

*Forage, fish and hunt for more of our food.

*Replace all or most beef/cow dairy products in our diet with goat meat & dairy.

*Raise a small flock of meat chickens - enough for us to have 1 or 2 per month and to share with/sell to friends and family.

*Make more and different cheeses with our goats' milk.

*Try our hands at making goat milk soaps.

*Can, freeze and dry A LOT more produce, meat and fish than in years past.

*Research the market for milk-fed kid goats and adult meat goats in our community. Including cultivating relationships with and learning more about different cultures/religions/ethnicities traditional food ways, and being able to honor their needs and provide them with their traditional and hard-to-find foods.

*Research/explore the steps necessary (and associated costs of) becoming a licensed raw milk farmstead dairy/creamery/cheese maker.

*Simplify and streamline our chore and maintenance schedule, so that things don't get behind or broken before they get our attention.

*Implement a solid routine for animal vaccinations, grooming, worming, etc. (We've been a little behind the 8 ball with this one, sadly. We want to be more proactive about critter health maintenance now that we have something of a grasp on who will be needing what and when, etc. Bottom line - being proactive should save us from having as many surprise issues pop up. It's a tall order when you have so many species and individuals with particular needs, but we're hell-bent on doing right be each and every one of these critters in our care.

*Attempt to comprise our diet of 20% or more of our home grown foods. Part of the challenge here will be figuring out how to measure this. I'll also have to try harder to find my taste for goat milk. ;)

*Earn enough on egg sales to cover the chickens supplemental feed costs completely. (This means their layer pellets, cracked corn, bread, grit, etc.)

*Prime and paint the chicken coops. This is a must-do!

*Work on my knitting, upcycled crafts and homemade preserves for Etsy, bazaar and farm stand sales.

Oy - I am thoroughly daunted by this list of mine. Let's hope that the financial, health and networking stars all align for us in 2012, so that me might make a real go of this little venture of ours.

Here's to a happy and prosperous new year for everyone! :)

xoxo - Michelle

The Garden (take two) and Other News

2011-12-29T21:02:00.000-08:00

We can all agree that last year's garden was an unmitigated flop, yes? And yet, here I am again, feeling that garden fever, brought on by an inundation of seed and nursery catalogs.

I heard it mentioned within the farming community, that a seed catalog received before mid-January or so is considered tacky, bordering on pushy. Our minds and backs have earned the right to a Winter of not even thinking about gardens, fertilizer, seeds and weeds, so what's the hurry?

Well, the hurry is about getting the seeds you want from the supplier you trust before everyone else does. Because once they're out of stock for a season, you have to find a backup source or nix that crop for that year. I buy almost exclusively from Victory Seed Company and have learned the hard way in years past that if you snooze, you lose.

So I did a quick inventory of what we have leftover from last year, and found that we are all set in the greens department, but could stand to stock up on carrots, pumpkins/squashes, sunflowers and herbs. So a-browsing I will go to see which cool old varieties are on offer. This bit of the garden planning is cake. It's figuring out the logistics and layout of the new garden that is going to drive me (but even more so, my poor Billy) completely mad.

We've consulted with an amazing edible landscape designer, and decided on a new, sunnier, less soggy location for the garden. Now we "get to" till fresh ground, slog a couple thousand pounds of compost and critter poo down through the hollow and back up the hill, and disassemble and move our deer fencing. My knees and spine weep at the very thought.

On a completely different subject, which doesn't pain me at all - yay!, is the happy news that we're finally getting a dog!

We found our little fella, Rex, though a Great Pyrenees rescue organization. He is not a purebred Pyr, but does have (according to his foster Mom) all of the friendly and desirable traits that you could want in a livestock guardian and family companion. We are very excited, especially the girls who love dogs. We are going to foster him for a few days in order to make sure that he is good for us, and we are good for him before locking him down as our forever pooch, but we're certainly hoping that that will be the way things work out!

The newest member of the Boggy Hollow crew!

It's shaping up to be a very full 2012 here in the Hollow! ;)

Pikshurs of my Baybeez

2011-12-15T13:44:00.001-08:00

Sorry, I get all mushy like that when it comes to the little ones. Also, I've been spending maybe a little too much time on the Corel PaintShop software that came with my camera, tinkering with pics of the babies. For your viewing pleasure-

One of the babies (a hen, we think) from the clutch hatched on 10/1/11. Mama was a red/brown Ameracauna and Papa was a White Crested Black Polish Frizzle. We are tentatively calling this mix "Policauna". ;)

I want to go outside, but I'm a little chicken. (BWAHAHA!)

A non-frizzled Policauna. This little dude/dudette is always very curious about visitors.

My Oreo-girl snuggling up to her Mama, Fritzen. It will be hard to see Fritzy move on to her new home, but I know that they are going to treat her like a queen.

Sisters :)

The Days of our Goats

2011-12-11T12:43:00.000-08:00

...or maybe "As the Goat Turns"? "Guiding Goat"?

Well it's a soap opera of some sort up there in goatlandia. Who's pregnant, who's the daddy, is he your brother? - stuff like that.

Using my entirely unscientific method of staring at goat butts and boobies, and visually gauging goat girth, I believe that 5 of our 6 lassies are pregnant.

The one that is most obvious is our dear Blue.

Blue and her steamy goat breath say "Hi".

While our sweet Bluey has always been a low rider of generous proportions, she is now honest to God wider than she is tall. Drink it in, peeps -

Girl knows how to work it!

As a basis for comparison, I snapped a pic of Blue next to our only confirmed non-pregnant goat, a yearling mini-Lamancha named Hop. See the difference for yourselves.

Our other girls are looking pretty rotund as well. Here are Teeny and Oreo, yearling twins who weren't supposed to be bred this year -

Because we didn't get to engineer who was bred to whom and when, we have a whole lot of surprises coming our way. I *think* that Blue will go first, but Chardonnay is looking pretty plump too, so it's hard to say. I'll be keeping an eye on their udders, watching for them to "bag up", as that seems to be the single best way to tell when they're getting close.

The excitement, the drama, the clothes nibbling - are you sure you don't want a goat of your own? 'Cuz I know a lady who might be able to hook you up...

Cheddar Check-in

2011-12-04T17:10:00.001-08:00

August - Day 1 - Still in the mold

Day 2 - Just turned out of the mold and air drying

September - Just waxed

November - After 12 weeks of aging. It is still "young", quite sharp and definitely goaty. The texture is firm and creamy, and melts nicely.

I only made the one cheddar, as I had no idea what to expect. Cheese making is a lot like wine making in that you don't really know what you've got or if it's even edible until months or years down the line; making it imprudent to spend a heap of time and raw material on a pursuit that may be all for naught.

Anyways - this one turned out! It's too strong for me and the girls, but Bill has been enjoying it, so come Spring, when our does kid and the milk is flowing again, I'll make another one or even two.

By the way - this cheese was made using Ricki Carroll's Farmhouse Cheddar recipe. Everything was by the numbers except for us using goat milk instead of cow's milk, and my improvised cheese press (I have a real one now) meant that this cheddar didn't get pressed with quite as much weight as was recommended in the recipe.

Next Year

2011-12-01T13:14:00.000-08:00

I say it pretty much every month, season, year - I'm almost there. The crazy is about to let up and carefree, easy-livin' will reign in the land o' Jackson once again!

So either I'm a hopelessly optimistic simp, or have a heavy case of willful amnesia.

Another farmer chick and bloggy-buddy of mine were just talking about this idea - the mythical "next year" that is the perpetual, elusive finish line and jackpot payoff for this year's (and every one before) efforts, losses, lessons learned. Next year, the soil will finally be *spot on* and my veggies will be EPIC! Next year, we'll have all of our fencing fixed and up and caring for the goats will be practically effortless! Next year, I'll start knitting for my bazaars in the Spring and avoid the crunch!

Ah, "next year", you tease, you! The faster we run, the more we push, the further away you get.

When the frenzy of Spring - planting, planning, births, cleaning - finally gives way to Summer, it's foraging, fishing, fretting over babies, milking, canning that consume our days. Then Fall comes, promising some relief, and delivering some, in addition to harvesting, breeding goats, putting food up, crafting, weatherproofing and putting the farm to bed for the Winter.

Winter is maybe the biggest trickster of all. The season when a farmer/homesteader is supposed to take their ease from a year of laboring and scrambling to keep things running, is instead just as busy. Keeping housing (people and animal alike) warm and dry in a Western Washington winter is job in and of itself. Sump pumps, five-gallon buckets, muck boots and rigging up ratty old tarps are all in a day's work.

Winter is also the traditional time of year to butcher stock. We will be harvesting a rooster or two and goat this Winter, and next year will likely have a pig or two to do as well. The amount of prep and labor that goes into harvesting and butchering might surprise you. It surprised me the first time! Segregating the animal (sometimes the night before), sharpening your tools, boiling water, gathering all of the odds and ends that you'll need for catching and holding "stuff" as you move through the process. And that is just the basic setup.

Then there's the cutting, wrapping, putting up of your harvest after the fact. It makes for one (or several) very long days.

Winter tends to be the time of year that we try to tie up the loose ends on all of our other hobbies and projects - racking wine, bottling vinegar, non-stop knitting, waxing cheese, smoking fish, tying flies, mending and endless planning, plotting and dreaming about next year.

An Embarrassment of Riches

2011-11-15T12:59:00.000-08:00

That's what my husband called the 15 pounds each of Asian pears and pomegranates that we "salvaged" from the free produce haul that we receive each week for our animals.

The content varies widely, so you never know if it's going to be an all cabbage week, or whether it's pumpkins and cantaloupes that will be the fuel for this week's eggs. It is a mystery, and it is incredibly interesting and very revealing of our flawed modern perception of food. We first-worlders expect our food to be impeccable looking, perfectly ripe/prime and always available. And when it's not, it's only fit for lowly animals or worse yet, dumped into a landfill. It is insanity.

My chickens will eat pomegranates, if you cut them in half so that they can get in there and gobble up the juice-filled capsules at lightning speed. And I did give them a few pomegranates to enjoy (they're heart healthy!) before deciding to keep the rest for myself. I opted to juice them, as everyone in the family enjoys pomegranate juice and/or grenadine (which was my back up plan in case the juice was blah).

I found out the hard way that juicing a pomegranate with a citrus juicer is quite a bit of trouble for not a lot of yield. We got about a quart of juice from our 15+/- pounds of pomegranate. Not much, but it was free.

Then I was left to ponder the Asian pears. In case you aren't familiar, these are the little guys that look like an apple and a pear had a baby, and you'll usually see them displayed in their own little styrofoam mesh swaddling. They are that delicate and prized. They also tend to cost upwards of three dollars each. (FYI - and average sized pear in my batch was 6 ounces, which means that these puppies can and do go for about $14 per pound.) And I had 15 pounds to work with.

So I did what I usually do when presented with an ingredient that I'm not used to working with, I googled. Try it for yourself. Google "juicing Asian pears" (quotes and all), and you will get precisely one result. That is how insane the idea of having that quantity of this fruit on hand and not having a plan for it is.

Not having had any help via googling, I made an executive decision to steam juice the majority of my pears. A steam juicer is a marvel. It can coax the juice out of fruits that are otherwise hard or messy to juice, like berries and apples. My kids go nuts for fresh juice, and this is a once in a lifetime opportunity for us to taste the nectar of the fruit of Emperors. :)

Quick and Easy Chevre Cheesecake

2011-11-10T12:39:00.000-08:00

Things are finally starting to wind down on ye olde farm for the season. Our does are nearly dried off - hallelujah! - but in the mean time, we're still getting a few quarts of milk each week. Between the milk, and eggs that we're getting from our hens (who are all in ultra-high gear and laying like maniacs), I've been desperate to find ways to use my abundance of dairy and eggs. What luck, then, that I should have stumbled upon a recipe for a Fresh Goat Cheese Cake that, in addition to using more than an half-pound of chèvre, also calls for a half-dozen eggs per cake. Bingo!

You can absolutely use store-bought goat cheese for this recipe, but in the event that you, too, are swimming in goat milk, and want to go full-on Martha Stewart about it and make your own goat cheese for your cake, it just so happens that I wrote up a homemade chèvre how-to for todayshandmade.com just last week. Crazy how these things come together... ;)

Either way - try this cake! It is so much simpler than any other cheesecake that I've ever made and would work equally well as a sweet or savory dish. I'm working on figuring out a spinach, artichoke, tomato version and will post it here if I ever get it hammered out to my liking.

Anyway - get cooking and enjoy!

Fresh Chèvre Cheesecake-
Adapted from Goat Cheese Cake with Mixed Berries by Emily Luchetti

•11 ounces chèvre (or other mild, fresh goat cheese), allowed to come to room temperature
•¾ cup granulated sugar
•1 ½ teaspoons fresh lemon juice
•1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
•1 teaspoon real vanilla extract (or as is my preference, vanilla infused bourbon)
•6 large eggs, separated*
•3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Butter a 9-inch cake pan, then dust with granulated sugar.

In a medium bowl, combine the goat cheese with the granulated sugar, lemon juice, lemon zest and vanilla extract, and beat at medium speed until smooth. Add the egg yolks, 2 at a time, incorporating them completely before adding the next two. Lastly, add the flour, beating it into the cheese mixture at low speed.

In another bowl, and with clean beaters, whip the 6 egg whites until firm, but not dry (firm peaks that are smooth, not lumpy).

Fold 1/3 of the beaten whites into the cheese mixture at a time, taking time to incorporate the eggs well before adding additional whites.

Pour the batter into your prepared pan, and bake for about 40 minutes. (I began checking mine at 3-4 minute intervals after the 32nd minute, just to avoid overcooking.)

Remove after 40 minutes, or when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool, dress with a topping of your choosing and serve. Enjoy!

Instead of the berry topping suggested in the original recipe, I used what I had an abundance of on hand at the time – apples. I peeled, cored and sliced three apples into eighths and stewed them with brown sugar, butter, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice and still more of that lovely vanilla infused bourbon. The resulting topping was a little soggier than I’d aimed for, but the taste was pure Autumn apple goodness.

*If you are using homegrown eggs like I do, you may opt to measure your eggs by weight rather than by number. Since they are not cookie-cutter factory farm produced eggs that all look and weigh the same, there will be more variance in size and weight. You should aim for about 2 ounces (in-shell weight) per large egg called for in your recipe.

Pictures of a Passel of Peeping Peepers

2011-11-07T18:55:00.000-08:00

This is what they look like 80% of the time. Spazzes.

One of our 3 naked neck frizzles (in the middle of the pack).

A Frizzled Polish/Turken and a Polish/Americauna, giving me the eye.

Liza Minnelli and Sir Fluffernutter :)

Twenty-six babies. Twenty-six babies who have just learned that pecking the side of the metal trough that is their home makes an interesting noise. Two and three a.m. are apparently prime time for these contagious experiments, which makes for strange dreams filled with pings and tweets that swell and fall silent in near-perfect unison every 20 minutes to half an hour. Mama bird can't wait until these babies leave her nest.

Critter Chow Heaven

2011-11-04T16:38:00.000-07:00

The big girls peck through the heap of yum-yums, two weeks ago.

This last week's batch of free critter produce was interesting - Hot peppers, cantaloupes, bagged salad mix and pomegranates, mostly. The cantaloupe and the croutons from the Caesar salad kits were the biggest hit with the chickens. The Bunzos liked the fennel and the broccoli. The goats are in one of their snobby "hay only" moods, and are therefore turning their noses up at all of the produce except for the occasional sliced apple. Divas.

This landslide of free animal food has been a blessing. Thanks again to the folks at Ralph's Thriftway for sharing it with us.

An Early Frost

2011-11-04T09:09:00.000-07:00

This year, it seems that our Western Washington Autumn is as hell bent on fast-forwarding into Winter as our Summer was on skipping straight into Fall.

Now, I'm not one of those Los Angeles, eternal-Summer types, but I am feeling a bit shafted after less than a month of "Summer weather", and now, just 6 weeks into Fall, we're getting hard frosts.

It's not like I'm worried that the frost is going to kill my garden. Poorer than expected soil quality and minimal heat did that a long time ago. It's that, with the return of what I have come to think of as our 6-month long Winter, comes the return of the bog, inches of slicker-than-snot clay mud, and worry - heaps of it.

I was born a worrier, but seemingly incessant darkness, damp and cold compound it. I worry about my animals - are they warm enough, dry enough, safe enough, getting enough vitamins and calories? The long-lasting dark means that the nocturnal critters that'd have my chickens and goats for dinner have extended business hours, keeping us on our toes about getting everyone tucked in for the night, earlier and earlier with each passing day, for the next 6 weeks.

It is joyful and burdensome at the same time to be responsible not only for a life, but for also ensuring happiness and comfort beyond basic needs. Between Bill and I, we now have the keeping of 72 lives besides our own on our backs and minds at all times. And Winter and it's accompanying wet and dark magnify every challenge.

I'd better stock up on my coffee and vitamin D. This season feels like it'll be a long one.

On Deck for this Week -

2011-10-30T20:24:00.000-07:00

*Turning some beautiful but mealy apples into "Apple Pie" schnapps :)

*Making more Pumpkin Raviolis

*Finally trying this Chevre Cheesecake recipe with a caramel-apple topping.

*Giving Tetanus booster shots to the goats

*Re-homing the Thunder-bird :(

*Vaccinating our "big birds" for Fowl Pox

So, a lot of cooking and a lot of critter jabbing. Oof. I'm tired already...

Slip-Sliding Away

2011-10-29T18:55:00.000-07:00

I fell down twice today while doing critter chores. I'm in my mid-30's, if I haven't outgrown my clumsiness yet, I think it's safe to consider myself officially, permanently gravitationally-challenged. Maybe my next move is to take preventative measures like wearing a helmet at all times, or sewing a hemorrhoid donut pillow into my chore pants?

All I know right now is this - two wipeouts in the mud and all of the animals tucked in for the night means that pajama/cocktail hour has arrived and that soon, all shall be right with the world again. :)

Los Bebés

2011-10-28T15:42:00.000-07:00

These little fuzzles are now about 4 days old. Most of these pics were taken on days #2 & 3. We ended up with 27 chicks, 10 of whom (by Livy's count) are "naked necks" - potenial frizzled polish-naked neck crosses. :)

A black Australorp chick. These little babies are as hardy as the day is long!

A wider shot of the gang of peepers.

I want to name this bird Liza Minnelli so bad. Seriously - do you see the resemblance too or have I been spending WAY TOO MUCH time around chickens?

Livydoo & "Liza" :)

Mixing two funny looking breeds to make a new and different funny looking breed is pure bird-nerd nirvana. Behold our first Fall hatch of babies, the Americauna/White-crested Black Frizzled Polish crosses -

This little frizzled dude reminds me of what a crow/stellar's jay cross might look like.

I am IN LOVE with this girl's wacky crest. It reminds me of a peahen or a quail of some sort, maybe? I dunno, but I do think she's durn fancy!

The heap o'babies. Suddenly, they are camera-shy.

Chicken & Egg Trivia

2011-10-23T19:15:00.001-07:00

On the eve of yet another, possibly our biggest ever, hatch of baby chicks, I find myself so wound up by the whole process that I have made the executive decision to fly my geek flag and fling some baby chicken trivia your way. Enjoy! ;)

*Chicks start to peep before they even hatch!

Mine have just begun doing so, with less than 24 hours to go in their gestation.

*Hatchlings do not need to eat or drink for as many as 2-3 days after hatching.

The yolk that fueled their development within the egg continues to provide the baby with sustenance until the babes learn to find and consume food and water, with the help of their Mama.

We never wait that long. They get food and water just as soon as they make the move from the incubator to the brooder.

*Baby chickens (and turkeys too) need to be taught how to drink.

The babies are born with a particular attraction to "shiny" things, which helps them seek out water. However, a Mama bird or surrogate Mama like me needs to actually show them how to dip to get a beak full of water, then extend their neck up and back to let the water run down their throat. They don't so much gulp liquid as they do scoop it and "knock it back". ;)

*The nearness of voices (chicken or human) encourage a chick to hatch.

The babies, if sat upon by their Mama hen, would have been listening for her clucks and bocks, as well as those of their fellow nestmates, as a sort of "all's well" sign that encourages them to hatch. In the case of my babies, since they've been hearing human voices for the past three weeks, will go from dead silent to a peeping frenzy upon hearing my greeting - even while still in the egg!

This is also one of the reasons that we leave the hatched babies in the incubator alongside the unhatched eggs for about 24 hours. All eggs that are going to hatch, should do so within that period, and the encouraging peeps of their siblings, as well as the occasional helpful peck, improve the hatch rate of a given clutch, in my experience.

We have a Farrrmerrr doon! (Again)

2011-10-22T18:01:00.000-07:00

Last time there was a Farrrrmerrrr doon it was because a single bite of undercooked chicken had it's revenge on me.

This time, it's muh back.

Apparently osteoarthritis wasn't content simply destroying my knees, and so set it's sights on L5-S1 and went to town. And it SUCKS!

Certainly not helping anything is the fact that, while collecting eggs yesterday, I full-on wiped out on the rain-slick clay, jarring my already cranky back and breaking half a dozen eggs in one fell swoop.

So, just the noo, this farrrm lass is a wee bit poorly. And she hasna held back on the pain killers, and may have been reading a wee bit tae much o' the Outlander Series while layin' aboot. Maybeh.

Food For All!

2011-10-18T08:10:00.000-07:00

"Food for All" was the mantra of a conference on food quality and equity that I attended this past weekend, the Sustainable South Sound Food Summit.

It was primarily a brainstorming session on the six topics that comprise the "Whole Measures Food Systems" concept. The six core ideas that comprise a Whole Food System are-

*Justice and Fairness
*Thriving Local Economies
*Vibrant Farms
*Healthy People
*Strong Communities
*Sustainable Ecosystems

Before breaking into groups to discuss the specific topics within the whole measures food system, we were provided some statistics about the current state of our county and state as related to family and individuals' access to wholesome food (farmers markets, grocery stores, food banks, meals on wheels, etc.), SNAP benefits (food stamps) and the WIC program. I was surprised and saddened to hear that in my wonderful, progressive community, that 1 in 10 people are still "food insecure", meaning that at any given time, they do not know where their next meal is coming from.

How can this be, in the land of plenty?

The other stat that literally sent gasps up in the room was that more than 50% of SNAP benefits are redeemed at convenience stores. I find that heartbreaking.

It would be a gross oversimplification, and indeed simply unfair to say that these convenience store shoppers are all frittering away their food budget on junk foods. The fact of the matter is, that many of the citizens that qualify for these benefits also face challenges with transportation, and therefore utilize convenience stores more often, simply because of their convenient location and 24/7 accessibility.

It can't be ignored though, that some do choose to use their food dollars on non-nutritive choices like soda, sports drinks and snack foods (as do an alarming number of non-food stamp users), and are thereby really not taking the best advantage of their food dollar.

So the challenge on this particular front is multi-faceted.

1 - How do we make better choices more accessible to everyone - our elderly, shut-ins, latchkey kids, homeless, working parents, students, etc.? Everyone.

2 - How can we make wholesome foods competitive with pre-packaged, ready-to-eat convenience foods like chips, hot dogs, lunchables, candy, etc., as far as ease of preparation, portability, price point and so forth?

3 - How do we cultivate a taste for good food in populations that have grown used to eating substandard, highly processed "foods"?

4 - (And this is one of my major pet peeves) How do we remove the stigma that organic and whole foods are upscale or unattainable luxuries?

Keep in mind that this is just one of many aspects of the emerging food crisis. If Fritos and Twinkies weren't made with federally subsidized GMO crops, they wouldn't be cheaper than their wholesome counterparts. So without going too crazy-political on you, I'd encourage you to think about, and learn more about our country's highly flawed farm bill, and how it has, after starting out with the best of intentions, become one of the smaller-scale, non-"big Ag" farmer's greatest enemies. Boiling it down to bare bones, our tax dollars are helping "Big Ag" turn out soulless, nutritionally inferior, cloned food. :(

I could probably go on forever about my feelings and ideas surrounding farming, food and food policy, but in the interest of getting this post up, after laboring over and pecking at it for nearly a week now, I'm going to hit publish post now, with the promise that I will be back to finish this thought/tirade another time. :)

Knitting Project: Decreasing Rib Capelet (part deux!)

2011-10-12T11:54:00.000-07:00

It isn't hard to tell when I like a pattern, because I make one for everybody and their cousin, whether they like it or not. This ribbed capelet definitely falls into the category of "knit now, figure out who it's going to later" projects. ;)

The first of these capelets was made for my friend, Mrs. P, last winter, and was modeled by my Livy-doo.

My most recent capelet was for young Miss. HB, who was gracious enough to model it for me. :)

I sort of inadvertently made two capelets in my attempt to make Miss. HB's one. Effort #1 was waaaaay to small, but by the time I realized that not even the give of ribbing would make it work, I was already halfway done. So I went ahead and finished it, and gave it to another lil' buddy of mine. Now she & HB are a matched set. :)

I have this project up on Ravelry, if you'd like to read more of my rambling notes or follow the link to the original pattern, check it out here.

Next up is a modified version of this capelet, more of a cape, really, for Miss HB's little brother.

Another Odd Egg

2011-10-10T22:47:00.000-07:00

We've seen a few of these lately. I'm not sure what causes it, but we call these "water balloons".

Looks like a relatively normal egg, right?

Except...

No shell at all, only membrane!

I'm going to have to research this phenomenon further, but I suspect that it is just a fluke that occurs now and then, especially with newer layers. Our girls get plenty of calcium in the form of crushed oyster shell and a very complete diet of organic, locally milled pellets, a loaf of bread per day, and all of the fresh grass, plants and bugs that they can eat, so we're not really worried that it's dietary, but can't rule it out altogether either.

To play it safe, we always compost these, though it might be fascinating to try and incubate one one of these times. Hmmm...

The Perils of Fresh Fruit

2011-10-07T14:43:00.001-07:00

Today, in spite of my wanky back and the drizzly weather, I decided to pop out to the yard and try to pick some of our apples for canning and juicing this weekend. It did not go great. Learn from my fail(s), friends-

#1 - Buy one of these. You'll be glad you did.

#2 - If your apple trees are very tall, you're going to have to "upgrade" your picker in a method we like to call "Jackson Style". i.e. - Using 9/10ths of a roll of duct tape to affix an addition old broom handle or random stick to the existing handle of your picker, thereby extending its reach. Can you appreciate the advantage gained by Jacksonizing our picker?

#3 - PROTECT YOURSELF. I wore only a hoodie and earphones. This was highly dumb on my part. What you need, my friends, is something more along the lines of a welding helmet, or Major League Baseball catcher's uniform. (I'll betcha the Yankees have one that's not being used right now. ZING!)

I took an 8-ounce apple, which fell from a height of 10 or 12 feet, to the "chest region". Annnd that's when I was done for the day. If there are any mathematically gifted among you who can calculate how hard/at what speed that apple slammed into my lady lumps, I'd love to hear the answer, if for no other reason, than to underscore the great dangers of urban farming on a very small scale.

The Last of the Stud Bunnies

2011-10-06T08:56:00.000-07:00

Do you all remember the little guy here with Scarlet?

This was "Leap", the last of our litter born this past February, at about 4 or 6 weeks old.

His brothers and sisters all went to new homes in pairs, leaving Mr. Leapy the odd man out. Right up until he successfully knocked up his mother, Cinderella, Leap's gender and sexual prowess were in question. The surprise litter of babies were our "A-Ha! moment" (don't sue me, Oprah!), immediately after which we segregated Leap to a bachelor pad of his own, where he lived a tolerable but somewhat lonesome existence, estranged from his mother/aunt/baby mama.

Well, our young buck has finally moved on to greener pastures. We sold him this past week to our neighbors who are starting to raise meat rabbits, but who's buck wasn't getting the job done. Enter, Leap.

Leap's new Mommy called me today to say that "he's been taking care of business". So much so, that he's been given a new name befitting his take-no-prisoners brand of courtship.

Ladies and gentlemen - Charlie Sheen!

WINNING.

Annnnd back to the bums-bums...

2011-10-05T09:31:00.000-07:00

I seriously had thought, nay, prayed, that my days of wrestling kids & critters for the sheer joy of getting to wipe their butts for them were over.

They're not.

We have a couple of pasty-vented babies in the brood, and they are none too pleased with my minstrations, whereas I, of course, am having the time of my life.

If you've got a morbidly curious streak, check out A Posse Ad Esse's entry on dealing with messy bird bums.

And now I must go, and return to my decadent lifestyle. Attempt to contain your jealousy.

The Circle of Life

2011-10-03T10:09:00.000-07:00

Before:

Literally seconds after this pic was snapped, Mr. Meanie came at Livy with spurs up. True to his moniker, he was a butthead to the last.

After:

Moments away from becoming soupy goodness.

Thank you, Mr. Meanie, for being mean, and therefore easing my conscience in deciding to turn you into dinner. You may have been a grumpy little pain in the butt when you were alive, but you sure made a lovely pot of soup, and gave the girls a surprising amount of educational fun time vis-à-vis: your innards. May your days in birdy Heaven be filled with torn up hot dog buns and good lookin' hennies beyond number. ;)

Baby's First Photos

2011-10-03T00:29:00.001-07:00

12 out of 20 eggs have hatched so far. 11 of those 12 chicks have survived so far. Not the world's greatest hatch rate, but we have another 24 hours left in our 21 day time frame during which we may get a few more peepers hatched out of the 8 remaining eggs in the incubator. In the mean time, enjoy the pics of the miracle of life, poultry style, as it unfolds on my dining room table.

And last but most definitely not least, is Scarlet, reenacting the hatching process while wearing her sister's old big yellow chicken Halloween costume. She later explained that she was wearing the costume primarily so that the chicks would imprint on her as their Mama Bird, and that her dramatic interpretation of the hatching process was purely for entertainment/educational purposes. I told you my kids were special. ;)

The Early Bird...

2011-09-30T16:24:00.000-07:00

...scares the crap out of Mommy!

These little buggers weren't supposed to hatch for another 3 days! I went to take them out of the egg turner and lay them directly on the screen in the incubator, when I saw this jive turkey pipping and peeping away.

Apparently Huckleberry had been sitting on these eggies for 3 days before we found them. Does anything ever go according to plan for us? Yeah, no.

More pics to follow as the babies hatch! :)

It's a trap!

2011-09-28T20:20:00.000-07:00

...a fruit fly trap, that is.

It may look like I'm setting out the good stuff for the bugs (that's what they're supposed to think - bwaha!), but it's actually just a bit of apple cider vinegar in the bottle.

You can buy fruit fly traps for around five to seven bucks that are basically the same setup, or you can just put about a nickel's worth of ACV in a container that has either a neck or steeply sloped sides (impeding escape) and the greedy little buggers will flock to it and drown. I know it's mean, and I don't like killing anything, but between the plague of gnats and crane flies that have engulfed us this year, Mama had enough.

I still don't have a great tip for ridding your home of crane flies, though my chickens have gleefully taken up the cause, chasing them down and snapping them up out of the lawn. I also usually find at least one freshly drowned in my scentsy wax-warmer every morning, so there's that...

For the Morbidly Curious Only - A firsthand view of goat puberty

2011-09-22T13:49:00.000-07:00

Brace yourselves, you've been warned!

We presently have 5 yearling goats on our little farm, a set of triplets and a set of twins. Buckley & Barley are our boys, and Hop, Oreo & Valentina (Teeny) are our girls.

The boys live apart from their mothers and sisters these days, because beginning about a month ago, the bucklings entered their first rut.

Buckley was the first to fall. He found creative ways to escape the pen he shared with his half-brother, and would immediately zoom straight up to visit the ladies (at this time, the doelings were still co-habitating with their Mamas). He couldn't figure out how to get into the pen, so he just paced and loafed around in turns, never stepping more than a few feet away from his paramours, all of whom but one, Chardonnay, are related to him by blood. Blood, schmud. Buck was not about to be dissuaded from courting them, one and all.

Then it was Barley's turn, my sweet, sweet baby boy Barley. I delivered him and warmed him while Chardonnay was still laboring to birth Hop, and our connection was sealed. I know I've said it before, but Barley is seriously more dog than goat, and I have an irrational love for the little bugger. He sits in my lap. He eats my clothes and licks my shins and boots (only my shins and boots - I dunno what's up with that) and gives me nuzzles and soft snorts. I could've hugged him all day. <3

But those days are gone (tears!) because now he is a stinky, horny mess, just like his brother. Oh Lord, the things my eyes have seen!

Warning! It's about to get REAL. If you have a touchy-tummy, I bid you look away now!

I'd been warned about how awful and stinky that buck goats get, but I took it in stride. I have bad sinuses - I can't smell anything! This will be cake, CAKE I TELL YOU.

The smell is the least of it.

The reason that the boys smell so horribly funky is twofold -

1 - They have scent glands near their horns that produce a "musk" that make the nanny goats weak in the knees. I personally don't get it, but male fragrances in general are not my thing. This musk is apparently their answer to Axe body spray, and I enjoy it just as much, which is to say, not at all.

2 - And this is the one that kills me. They pee on their own face. This is the part of the story of bucks that knocks most people out - initially. Yes, they're that limber, and yes, they apparently think that it makes them more attractive to the gals to have a dingy-yellow, toilet-scented face. I can't even pet my baby-boos now or I have to have a bio hazard-style decontamination shower to get the super funk off of me. :(

So there is the funk, explained. Now, the behavior. Hold onto your hats.

If you were impressed by the fact that the boys can manage to bend just so to wiz on their own faces, wait 'til you hear what else they can and do do in that same position. OFTEN.

Yup, I told you it was nasty. The uncastrated male goat is completely capable of self-fellation. AND BOY ARE THEY FANS OF IT. :(

How does this work exactly? Well, let me give you a quick upshot on goat anatomy. The buck's penis retracts like a dog's or a horses, so most of the time you are really only seeing the "sheath". When the buck is frisky, the business comes out. I'd estimate that the penises of my 8 months old (50ish pound) bucklings are about 6+ inches long, and roughly the girth of a pencil or a sharpie. Therefore, the boys can either "get down" while standing up, if they're limber enough, or lay down on their side and do the deed. It is a horrifying sight.

The other thing that I've been seeing a lot of is when the boys are just going about their business, and apparently a oil drum full of testosterone hits their bloodstream all at once. They get an erection, their muscles all tense, and they make the most bizarre teeny little groans and "O" faces. Oh God is it nasty. Wild eyes, quivering lips - YUCK.

These sweet babies have turned into the most base, guttural humping machines that I've ever seen. It is upsetting on many levels.

The doelings' behavior, thank God, is no where near as dramatic or x-rated. They mostly just bawl 24/7. I'd really rather that they had had a whole year and a half to grow before their first breeding, but as the boys have made more than one jailbreak during this rut, that ship may very well have already sailed. I don't think that Hop is pregnant though, because she is acting like she's in heat for the past two days, "vocalizing" (begging for nooky via MEEEEEHHHHHH! every 30 seconds) a lot and is a great deal more affectionate than normal. Hmmm...

I suspect that the big girls, Chardonnay, Frtizen and Blue could be knocked up too, because their behavior (the whining, etc.) has settled down, and I haven't seen any physical signs of heat since last month. Although we did want to breed them this fall, we were hoping to wait until at least October, so that the kids would come in March instead of February, like last year. I'd also like to have engineered who was bred to who, not mating mother to son, for instance, but that too could be out the window. Oy, oy, oy. The things I do for cheese!

I hope that I haven't caused you to fear or dislike goats, or to fear or dislike reading this blog, for that matter. I only wanted to share my "unique" perspective on the whole shebang, the good bad and uggggg-ly that this urban farmer business entails. There's only so much you can get from the books. ;)

P.S. - Spell check really didn't like "fellation" or "uncastrated". I daresay my spell check is one classy lady. ;)

Cheesy Suggestions?

2011-09-19T18:45:00.001-07:00

I have a few gallons of goats milk in the fridge just waiting to be put to good use, and I'm going to use it to make another cheese. So I thought I'd ask, what kind of cheese should I make?

A) Another Parmesan!
B) FetaFetaFetaFeta
C) Chevre (most of which I'll have to share, because Bill's out of town, and this is not my favorite cheese)
D) Cheddar
E) A metric ton of Mozzarella
F) Something else - you tell me!

And maybe, just maybe, I'll finally document a cheese making from beginning to end this time. Maybe.

Bill's Parmesan

2011-09-16T19:44:00.000-07:00

This was taken on day #3. It's looking good already, no? Waiting is going to be hard.

Yet Another Project in the Works

2011-09-15T19:21:00.000-07:00

You know, because goats and chickens and tween-age daughters aren't enough to keep me busy, I've decided to open an Etsy shop. :)

It's called Postmodern Milkmaid, 'cuz I am one of those, or at least I like to think I am. There is a blog associated with it that actually has more content on it right now than my shop does, so for the mean time, I'll direct you there to check out my projects in progress - A Postmodern Milkmaid.

My theme/mantra here is to use 100% recycled/found/landfill-bound materials, and to not have to purchase anything at all to complete my projects. All yarn will be leftover or reclaimed yarn, same goes for fabrics, etc.

I welcome your feedback and suggestions. Be honest, but, please, oh please, not too brutal. I need true feedback, but I am still a fragile wee thing (mentally) and can take uber-blunt feedback a little too personally.

Anyhoo, wish me luck. And thanks, as always, for reading my ramblings and coming back for more. ;)

Chelle

Obsessive Egg Watch: Day 3

2011-09-15T12:54:00.000-07:00

Blood vessels! We have blood vessels!

AND - I think I'm seeing one heart in the double yolker. Fingers crossed that chickie #2 is just lagging behind a touch.

I'll try for some candling pictures tonight, when it's good and dark.

YAAAAY FOR CHICKIES! :)))

Greetings from the Land of L'oeuf

2011-09-14T14:36:00.000-07:00

Put up, frozen, and preserved of the season's foody offerings this week so far -

*Spicy Pork Broth, 3 quarts, frozen
*Blackberry Fruit Roll-ups, 5 lbs worth
*Blackberries, 3 pounds, frozen
*Spinach & Goat Feta Pierogi (Pitaha), 45, frozen
*Rose Petals, Bachelor Buttons, Nasturtium and Lavender flowers - dehydrating them like they're going out of style, cuz they are.

If my back isn't still dogging me, I'll can some blueberry & blackberry jam next week. I also want to make up some traditional Pitaha, with some gorgeous potatoes that were grown by my friends Gabby & Daeg.

I also need to make another batch of feta, or else drown in milk. Same goes with the eggs. I might just be desperate enough to try freezing some, though that still seems weird to me.

I googled "recipes that use a lot of eggs" and got some interesting results. It seems like the suggestions fall into two categories -

#1 - The Dee-hhuuuurrrrs. Have you thought of making an omelet or some deviled eggs? Dear, simple, simple friend. OF COURSE I'VE THOUGHT OF THAT. The trouble, you see, is that I have six dozen eggs and counting, and if my family somehow did manage to muscle down 72 onion-laced eggs, the air quality in North Olympia would suffer a mighty blow, and no one wants that.

#2 - The "Butterified". Pound cake, custard, mousse. All yummy, and all calling for as much or more butter and sugar than eggs. There has to be a way to make something with these babies that doesn't give us diabetes or coronary artery disease, right?

So I guess that I'm going to make some more egg noodles to freeze, and maybe try drying some as well. We'll have scrambled eggs for breakfast and dinner a few times this week and see what kind of damage we can do to the stockpile. Maybe I can start whipping them at the psycho DB that flies by my house on his Ducati at 120 miles per hour?

Nah, he's not worthy of my juevos, only my seething contempt.

By the by, this evening will make 48 hours since the mega-clutch went into the incubator. I've been candling the eggs nightly, because I'm maniacally curious about their inner goings-on. I can't tell for sure, but I *think* I see some progress in their development. There appears to be a pencil eraser-sized spot of increased density in the middle of several of the yolks. No dead giveaways, like blood vessel development, but I think that might still be a few days out.

Here's a pic I took on day one of our one and only double-yolker in the lot.

I don't know what the odds are of twin chickies making it, but I'll keep candling and keep you informed about any "eggciting" developments. ;)

Sorry about that. I need to get out more.

Holy Hidden Huevos, Batman!

2011-09-12T20:44:00.000-07:00

Each night at around dusk, we lock our chickens in the coop for the night. Walking out there, you never know what exactly awaits you. Will there be 10 hens roosted up in the rhododendron that you have to fish out, flapping and fighting, in the dark? Will this be the night that you come around a corner to see a coyote or a raccoon (God forbid!) making off with your favorite hennie? Will anyone have collected eggs yet that day, or will it be time for the lightning round of huevo-seek? You just don't know.

Well, with 23 hens, 18 of whom are new layers, we've been having to go the extra mile to track down and collect all of the eggs that they've been laying hither and yon. Those gals are crafty! They'll lay their eggs in the weirdest, most impractical places, just for a shot at motherhood.

Case in point, young Miss Huckleberry.

I knew that she was up to something, because each day when I went to feed the chickens their bread, she'd always show up a full 30 seconds after everyone else. Peeling out on her way in from somewhere down by the bog, doing the run-flap-fly-hop thing in an effort to reach the feeding frenzy before all of the goods were gone. I had my eye on her, but for the life of me, I couldn't track down the hidden nest that I knew must be out there somewhere.

But that's ok, I didn't have to, Bill did.

He heard a bit of clucking under some holly/ivy/who-knows-what bushes and stooped to investigate. Very well hidden among the greenery was our girl, Huck.

Gotcha!

Bill thought that we should go ahead and put her in the coop with the others. It isn't safe for her to be out all night. So he picks her up and...

ARE YOU EFFIN' KIDDING ME?

Eighteen eggs. EIGHTEEN EGGS. This little mama has been squirrelling these puppies away for half a month. Sneaky monkey...

The clutch, just before going into the incubator.

Bill & Liv collected the still-warm eggs, and quickly brought them inside where I hastily set up our incubator. Those 18, plus 2 more that I found in a separate nest on the other side of the chicken yard are now "cooking" away. We have no way of knowing whether or not these eggs are fertile, and if so, how far along they are, etc. We also don't know for sure who the Papa bird is. It could be Curlie, the white-crested black Polish frizzle, or possibly King Kong or Rockstar, our Australorp roos. Maury Povich, where are you when I need you?

So approximately 3 weeks from now, we may have the pitter-patter of little chicky feet in our hot tub room, once again. These chicks will either be Americauna/Polish or Americauna/Australorp mixes, so they have the potential to look... interesting.

I'm kind of hoping for a 'Lorp/Americauna mix, as you could have the best of both worlds in one chicky - great temperament, hardy as all get-out and a blue egg-layer. Ok, I'm a little excited now. :)

I've got a Lorp-A,
A Lorp-Acauna.
The coolest chick,
West of Botswana.
Got a Lorp-A,
A Lorp-Acaaaaauna.
Blue eggs,
and black legs,
and something else that rhymes here.
There's a Lorrrrp-Aaaaah...
down in, my boggggg.

2011-09-11T13:56:00.000-07:00

I woke up a bit later than usual that day.

By some good fortune, the baby had decided to sleep in a bit. Taking advantage of this rare moment of freedom, I decided to check my email and futz around on the internet. The Yahoo! homepage looks so weird. Huge pictures of a flaming, smoke-filled cityscape. Multiple 18 and 20-point bold font headlines, that before I can even read them, tell me that something huge must have happened. I read their words, and for a few seconds, actually manage to convince myself that this is a mistake; a prank. Yahoo! has been hacked. Grasping at any reason at all that this could be anything but true and actually happening.

I run in a daze from the office to the living room and turn on our tv. I don't know what channel. It didn't matter. Every channel was the same. Manhattan in flames and utter panic and chaos spreading in near silence. Even the polished anchormen and womens voices warble and crack now and then, as they try to describe and speculate on what has and is unfolding. My brain hears but doesn't comprehend. I only see and feel rending horror and grief.

It's hard to look away. If I stay, keep my vigil, will the energy of my quaking heart, combined with a million others, be enough to stop it?

I turn off the tv, and go pick up my sleeping baby. She curls into me like a boiled shrimp and burrows her sleep-damp head into the hollow of my neck. I breathe in her smell. One slow breath after another, in an attempt to adopt her drowsy rhythm and not allow her to sense my panic or hear my racing mind. Outwardly calm, inwardly screaming. One deep sweet, baby-scented breath, then another. Trying to stem the tide of horrified thoughts of the future, both immediate and long term. We're going to war. Jimmy is going to war! God! Are we safe here? Why is it so quiet right now? Will Olivia grow up doing air-raid drills like my mother's generation did? Where is Billy? I want Billy home with me RIGHT NOW!

I maintained my outward calm as best I could. I didn't want the baby to hear me cry, and I surely didn't want her seeing the tv. So I spent the better part of the day in an informational blackout, all the while dying to know what more had been learned about what happened, and what could be done to help. But I didn't dare turn on that tv. If I could keep the horror from touching her, than nothing else mattered.

I remember it perfectly. Sometimes I wish I didn't.

Sustainable South Sound Food Systems Summit

2011-09-11T10:38:00.000-07:00

I'm going. How about you? :)

Taking place in Olympia on October 14th & 15th. More information about Sustainable South Sound's Local Food Systems Summit is available here.

Let me know if you plan to go. We can carpool! :)

Setting a Feed Budget - A Work in Progress

2011-09-07T11:29:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe it, but it's not quite been a year that we've been goat owners. We've come a long way, baby! Last night's milking was yet another record setter - 72 ounces total from our two milkin' Mamas, Chardy & Fritzen.

In the event that you don't follow the day-to-day deets of our little farm over at The Bog Blog, you may not have been privy to a few goaty change-ups that we've made lately that have increased our milk production and simplified our lives just a smidge.

First of all, all the boys are together at the moment, and in spite of Spike being the devil incarnate, it seems to be working out fairly well.

Secondly, we finally separated the doelings from their Mamas. The wee ones were not at all pleased by the new arrangements, but the Mamas seem to have taken it in stride. The amount of milk we're getting per day has more than doubled since the babies no longer nurse at all. I hadn't thought that they were really nursing all that much anymore anyway, but apparently they were still getting a good bit. The Mamas produce enough milk now that we could actually milk them twice per day, but since we are approaching breeding season and will soon begin to work toward drying them off, we're not going to bother with twice a day milking.

Anyhoo, now that you're up to speed on our ruminant living arrangements, I'll now get back to the original point of this post - feed costs.

The cost of good quality, local hay, alfalfa, minerals and treats adds up. It is not uncommon for us to spend $120 on a hay run, and we buy hay on average 2 times per month. Ouchie. I can assure you that we're not getting $240 worth of dairy products out of our goaties (not that that is the entire point of our having them), which means that the money being spent on them lands under the heading of "pet food". Love them though I do, these goaties are not technically our pets, they are our stock. Stock are supposed to earn their keep. We're not there yet.

So constricting the outflow of dough spent on feed and other critter essentials - even just a little - has the potential to put us leaps and bounds closer to our eventual goal of having an affordable, self-sustaining farm set-up. So Bill and I (mostly I) have decided to buckle things down and attempt to grow, forage, glean and trade for as much of our fall and winter critter feed as possible. Here are the angles I'm working right now -

*I've been posting to CraigsList, seeking windfall and slightly damaged/bolted fruits and veggies for critter food, and actually scored a few wheelbarrows full of bruised apples that way.

*I've told all of my friends with gardens that I will gladly accept their buggy, wilted and gone-to-seed produce and repay them in kind with eggs and dairy. Got a nice big bag full of bolted lettuce for the goats & bunzos just the other day.

*I've been picking berries for my family like crazy, and after weeding through them, keeping the weird/mushy ones, leaves, etc. for the critters. I've both fed them to the critters fresh, and started dehydrating some for winter supplements & snacks.

*I've been eyeballing abandoned and unpicked fruit trees and making a mental list of the places I need to hit to forage and glean. I'm wondering if folks would be more apt to let me scoop up their windfalls and/or pick their unwanted fruit if I came a-knocking with some eggs in hand to trade?

That's as far as I've been able to get with this. I wish we could have hayed our own pasture this year, but the layout of our property would make it hard, if not impossible to get a good-sized mower and baler in here. And for maybe 2 acres of harvestable grass, it hardly seems worth it.

I've toyed with the idea of doing the old school scythe & stack with our pasture, but for one thing, we have no idea of what sort of grass we have, or what nutrient content it has, and for another, with as soaking wet as this place gets, there is really no great storage space for great quantities of hay until we get our pole barn built.

So I'm scavenging, bartering and stocking up when and where I can for now. I hope to put together an official critter food budget THAT WE ACTUALLY STICK TO for this coming fall and winter.

What about you? If you can't grow your own animal feed, how do you source it? What do you do to trim costs?

I'd also love to hear how you store and use any produce, grain, etc., that you put up for your animals. I'm pondering trying a homemade rabbit pellet/treat. Are there any good recipes out there for homemade farm animal treats?

Babies having Babies

2011-09-03T12:56:00.000-07:00

Having eighteen pullets and five roosters all "coming of age" at the same time makes for a whole lot of crazy.

Can you believe that these little fuzzballs are laying eggs of their own now?

March 6, 2011

The puberty wave has brought with it a few strange new experiences -

*Waking (and sometimes going to bed) to the sound of 5 frisky boys trying to out-warble one another. Thunder is the undisputed crowing champ. His crow is like a scratchy air raid siren, especially when unleashed within the confines of the coop. Eardrums bleeding now!

*The chicken edition of "I didn't know I was pregnant" playing itself out daily. Some of our ladies' nesting instincts have not quite caught up to their ovaries, catching them off guard and thus necessitating...

*...a daily Easter Egg hunt. A high-stakes game of find the egg, if you will. The challenge being to find every egg every day without fail, lest you should find one that has somehow escaped your notice for a day or two and sat baking in the August heat. No es bueno.

*Squabbles and kerfuffles over the "good" nest box. Sometimes there's a line. Sometimes the gals don't quite make it, and you find an egg or two where the queue had been. Sometimes desperation takes over, and two hens will squeeze their fluffy booties side by side into a one-hen nest, or, even more rarely, one will sit on top of the other, sidesaddle.

The gals do not always maintain a dignified air while waiting either. If one hen is perceived as taking too long to get the job done, the others will BOCK! their everlovin' heads off until they get their turn in the hot seat, or scramble to find a suitable last-minute replacement for the coveted nest box. Sometimes this is in a corner of their coop or a batted down tuft of grass in the yard. There have been a few times that they have laid eggs under the new coop or, mysteriously, on the "wrong" side of the fence. (Are they escaping the yard, laying, then coming back? Or do they simply aim their derrieres to the south and pop an egg through the 4x4 fence, and into the great, wide world?)

Who can say? All I know is that chickens are generally under-appreciated for their entertainment value. Romances, bitter feuds, babies out of wedlock - it's like an episode of All My Children over here.

A Sampling of our lovlies ~

Curlie, the frizzled Polish Roo, looking, err... not his best.

Amelia the Americauna, in the highly-coveted nest box. Amelia is our super-jumbo egg layer. We're talking 4 oz eggs! Go Melie, go.

Beanie, one of our two Turken hens. Her sister, Vulture, looks the same, but has greenish black feathering like the Australorps.

Thunder, mid-crow, as ever.

Chick-Chick, our only white Americauna and the leader of the pack.

Blackberry, an Australorp pullet, one of nine. Her sisters, Agnes, Rockstar, Pinky-Pinky-Pinky, Skateboard and a few others are not pictured. Could you ever have guessed that I had the help of my friends' preschoolers when naming my chicks? ;)

30 28 Hats in 31 Days

2011-09-01T21:42:00.001-07:00

My challenge to knit 30 hats in 31 days for the Period of Purple Crying's educational campaign against Shaken Baby Syndrome has drawn to a close, and I missed my goal by thismuch - two little hats, to be exact.

Still, 28 hats in a month is still a respectable number. That's an over-sized kindergarten classroom's worth of heads that will hopefully be rendered both warm and safe via my hats and the information provided to their parents about how to safely deal with episodes of intense crying. I feel pretty good about having done my bit in that. :)

I'm slightly relieved to have a break from my frenzied knitting. I think that no one is as relieved to see me reach the end of this challenge as my husband is. He saw my staying up late, knitting on the go and otherwise shoehorning yarn and needles in every spare second I had as a small but omnipresent stress and distraction. I'll say this for it, it was my chief downtime occupation this month. My normal sitting-on-my-tush chores, like folding laundry, have suffered somewhat from being sent to the back burner for 4 1/2 weeks. Fear not, crunchy towels and socks - Mama's back! ;)

A picture of all 28 hats, followed by some close-ups of a few of my favorites of the lot. :)

This is actually a self-striping sock yarn. It was a breeze to work with and I loved not having 7000 ends to tuck in!

The eggplant

I've been calling this one Boysenberry Swirl. Does this hat look like a dish of Fro-Yo or what? ;)

Catching Dinner

2011-08-29T22:58:00.000-07:00

Just a few photos of our lovely fishing trip to Elger Bay, which I wrote a bit about a few weeks ago here. I finally downloaded the camera and found some great shots of the kids and the seafood that I thought I'd share. ;)

Zooming, aka "turning on the air conditioning"

One day's Dungeness crab haul.

Using the crab measurer to see whether or not she's a keeper. ;)

A decent-sized Dungie

A Dogfish (shark) on the line. These little turkeys fight HARD!

Scarlet hauling up a flounder.

Elger Point, I think? With our crab buoy floating off to the right. What a beautiful view!

A bag full o' flounder!

Our next venture out into the salt will be to chase down a salmon or two. In addition to the annual summer salmon run, this is also a pink salmon year - they only run in odd numbered years - so our odds of landing a salmon are decent if we can find them in the right place at the right time. They're finally coming into the Puget Sound in respectable numbers, and headed for the rivers. So if we miss them in the salt, we might still have a chance at nabbing one in fresh water. Now we just need to find the time to get out there and fish!

My First Farmhouse Cheddar!

2011-08-28T19:32:00.000-07:00

It just came out of the mold, and is now sitting on a bamboo cutting board under the watchful eye of Lorelei, the Goat in a Coat, to dry for at least three days. After it has dried well, I'll be waxing it. It is ready to eat in as few as 8 weeks, but supposedly tastes best when aged for at least six months.

So somewhere in the neighborhood of Valentines Day, I should finally get to find out whether or not I'm any good with cheddar and/or whether goat's milk cheddar is better or worse that the good ol' cow cheddar that I was raised on. Fingers crossed...

P.S. - Check out the picture of The Goat in the Coat and other amazing batiks by my friend, the lovely and talented Lisa Telling Kattenbraker, at her Etsy shop or at lisauntitled.com. :)

My Sub-Compact Summer

2011-08-27T21:19:00.000-07:00

Well, here I am again, griping.

This hissy fit is brought to you courtesy of our Western Washington weather. This year was a new kind of brutal. Never-ending winter, spring in July and true summer weather that didn't show up until about two weeks ago. The kids got out of school two weeks late for having to make up snow and storm days, which means that this year's summer vacation was only about 9 1/2 weeks long, instead of 12ish. So - late dismissal plus late weather equals 3 1/2 weeks of summer shoe-horned in immediately before school starts up again. Oh the humanity!

My canning, harvesting, foraging, salmon fishing, back to school shopping, school orientations, hat knit-a-thon, cheese making and ramped-up critter wranglings are all smashing up against one another and making me a little nuts. It's an insane amount to funnel into such a small time period, and the unfortunate side effect is my attitude going to pot and some things falling by the wayside. I wish that I could have taken a deep breath this summer and been able to enjoy it better, but I haven't yet.

God willing, this lovely weather that we're having will last for at least a few weeks after the girls go back to school, so that I can find some quiet, non-over scheduled time to drink up some summer before it's gone.

Trading my Hoe for a Hook

2011-08-18T22:33:00.000-07:00

We slipped away from Ye Olde Farm for a few days, up to the beautiful and serene Camano Island. Did I knit while I was away? Yes. Did I knit more baby hats per my one-hat-per-day schedule to meet my goal of knitting 30 hats in 31 days? Err... no.

I'm still determined to meet my goal, I just needed a wee bitty breather from hats and the color purple. So instead I made Scarlet a beret and shawl for her American girl doll, and started a lightweight scarf for Olivia. When and if I get these badboys up on Ravelry, I'll post a link.

Besides knitting like a maniac, I also spent my farm-free vacay fishing and crabbing in Puget Sound. Our little family of four purt-near cleaned the Pacific Sanddab aka "soft flounder" out of Elger Bay. Over three days fishing, we caught something like 18 or 20 of them. We were knocking them dead when our bait wasn't being stolen by bullheads and dogfish. The sanddab average about 1/2 pound each, and are really more bones and guts than meat, but we managed about 6 pounds of fillets, and the remainder was/will be used as crab bait. We are very careful to use every last bit when we harvest an animal, and fish are no exception. We chowed down on our fresh catch nearly every night that we were camping, but we also socked some away in the freezer, to enjoy another time.

We also scored a few good sized Dungeness crab - yum, yum, yum! Though crab are traditionally and most commonly boiled, we prefer to grill them. Bill dispatches the little guys, cleans them then throws them on the bbq, still in the shell. I like to sprinkle a little beer on them while they grill. When they're done, we serve them with seasoned, melted butter, lemon and generous sprinkling of Old Bay. Smokey, sweet, salty - goooood stuff!

We also tried for some pink salmon, but they don't seem to be in the Sound in large numbers yet, so the fishing is very slow still. Bummer, that, because I wrangled the kids into picking me a couple cups of salal berries, and had visions of grilled salmon with a red wine/salal reduction. Alas it was not to be. Bill is going after the salmon again tomorrow, this time in a different area that supposedly has better fishing. We shall see. I may get my salal salmon dinner yet. ;)

Fishing/Crabbing totals-
*8 Dungeness crab
*15 lbs +/- Pacific Sanddab (about 6 lbs cleaned)

An Americauna Pullet's first egg!!

2011-08-08T15:51:00.000-07:00

My first ever guest-post, written by my amazing, beautiful, creative, chicken-wrangling 11 year-old, Olivia. :)

This is Olivia , Michelle's daughter and the family "bird nerd". I love chickens and I am honored to tell you that one of our americauna pullets laid her first egg.

We noticed our first egg yesterday when we were doing critter patrol. It was much smaller than the other eggs, and we were anxious to find out who laid the egg. We're still not sure who has laid the egg yet, but I suspect it's Creampuff, because she is the oldest and when you try to pick her up, she goes into chick-protection position. It might not be, but I have those tiny pieces of evidence that made me guess. We remain curious of who laid the egg, but whoever laid it, we're proud of her. :)

We were able to tell that the egg was from a pullet because it was smaller than the others. It was bluer than the older americaunas, really pale too. If you don't look at it in good light, it looks white! When I went inside after we did critter patrol to ledger the eggs, I thought today when I ledger the eggs, I thought I would write the date and a footnote at the very last page saying: "Our americauna pullet's first egg!!"

I am very happy that one of our pullets gave us something in exchange for those hundreds of dollars spent on feeding them, and buying waterers, feeders, and the wood, nails, the pneumatic stapler and nailer, the brads, staples, metal, screws, the air compressor, and all the blood, sweat, and tears that went into the work of their home. Although that gift is small, and the amount we spent is big, and the egg is so small, we will forever be grateful for our americauna pullet's first egg.

Pictures: Above: the eggs we gathered yesterday. Below: A comparison between the pullet egg and an older hen's egg.

Knitting Like There's No Tomorrow

2011-08-07T11:24:00.000-07:00

But there is a tomorrow! And if I don't finish at least one hat before then, I have officially fallen behind the curve to reach my goal of 30 hats in 31 days. I'm about 7 1/4 to the good. Here are the finished (but not tucked) seven -

Simple cables, stripes, the eggplant, preemie ribbed stripes, purple knot-top, simple two-color, lavender and navy stripe

I'm having a bit of trouble making primarily purple hats that look suitably boyish. Any thoughts?

Are you knitting, crocheting or sewing along with my challenge? Show us your hats! :)

Knitting for Babies - 30 hats in 31 days?

2011-07-29T14:34:00.000-07:00

Since our Farmer Feed Thyself Challenge has been indefinitely postponed due to underwhelming garden production, I've decided to take on a different challenge for the month of August. I'm going to try to knit 30 newborn baby hats in a month.

Why, oh why would I want to knit my ever-loving booty off in the middle of summer, you ask?

I'm knitting hats as part of a newborn hat drive for an educational campaign called The Period of Purple Crying.

The organization's goal is to educate new parents and caregivers of infants about a normal developmental stage (from about 2 weeks of age to 4 months) in which babies cry more often and more intensely, which they refer to as "Purple Crying". Knowing that this is a normal behavior, and knowing how to properly cope with the frustration that a wailing baby can cause is a critical step in reducing instances of Shaken Baby Syndrome and Abusive Head Trauma in infants.

The little purple hats will go home with newborns, along with information on identifying and coping with Purple Crying. The idea is to have a reminder right there on your sweet baby's noggin that his or her crying is ok, and like all developmental hurdles, shall pass in time.

Knitting is my therapy anyway, so knitting to save a life is practically nirvana in my book. ;) I encourage you to join me in making as many wee little hats as you have time to make - knitted, sewn or crocheted. The guidelines for the hats are as follows -

•Caps should be made using clean and NEW YARN any shade of PURPLE yarn. Other colors of yarn may be incorporated into the cap, but a shade of PURPLE should encompass at least 50 percent of the cap.

•Yarn and thread labeled, as "baby friendly" should be used for caps.

•Infant heads come in a variety of sizes. As a general rule, caps should have a circumference between 10.5 - 13.5 in. and a height of 5-6 in.

•Please refrain from including “pom poms” or any type of strap to secure caps to baby’s heads. These pose a potential choking and/or strangling hazard to babies.
You can find patterns for PURPLE Caps at www.clickforbabies.org under the Knit Section.

Finished hats can sent to any of the hospitals listed on the clickforbabies.org website. Mine will be divvied up between Legacy Emanuel in Portland, where a family member works, and Mary Bridge Children's Hospital in Tacoma, where my oldest was born. Please knit, crochet and sew along with me and use your creative energy to change lives!

FYI - I'm starting early. 3/4 of a hat done so far. 29 1/4 to go! :)))

Cue the Banjos

2011-07-21T13:15:00.000-07:00

Guess what the girls found today?

MORE BUNNIES!

Five (we think) teeny, little, incredibly inbred bunnies. Unless Prince Charming's neutering didn't take (how could it not? His huevos are gone), these are the children of Cinderella and Leap, her son that we'd thought was a daughter. Keeping in mind that Cinderella and Prince Charming are brother and sister, and that Leap is the product of their "union", with Leap then going on to father babies with his mother/aunt Cinderella, well... I guess that I shouldn't be surprised if the bunnies hop backwards or have horns or something. Good gravy!

So we're looking to re-home our sweet Mr. Leap, as we cannot afford another $120 rabbit vasectomy. He's extremely tame, since being handled practically from birth. He's also obviously not your average aggressive buck, as he masqueraded successfully as a girl all this time, and he's been the picture of sweetness with these new babies, bringing Cinny mouthsful of hay and his own hair to help her build her nest. Any takers? ;)

In another 6-8 weeks we'll also have the babies up for grabs. Their gender and coloration are still unknown, but if you're interested in a sweet little backwoods bunny with an "interesting" family history, give me a shout.

7/23/11 Update: The babies didn't make it. We're not sure what went wrong. :( We are still trying to re-home Leap, if anyone is interested.

Garden Woes

2011-07-16T12:05:00.000-07:00

Garden-wise this year, not much has been happening, let alone on the scale on which we'd imagined it. It's a huge bummer, because a) we're used to having an abundance of organic, homegrown produce at this time of year for eating and canning, which isn't going to happen, and b) because we don't get to try again for another 9 months.

We were foiled on a couple of fronts, mainly, that this Spring and Summer were both slow to arrive and then failed to dazzle weather-wise. This is the second ho-hum summer in a row here, and it's bumming me out.

Our other failing was our soil. We saw it's richness and deep black color, and foolishly assumed that it would be adequately fertile, as it had not been gardened for nearly a decade. Wrong-o! We amended with goat poop, bunny poop and a worm casting/bat guano liquid fertilizer, but everything except the weeds seems to be growing in slow-mo.

This sorry state of affairs leaves me to wonder if there will be any way at all for Bill and I to carry on with our Farmer, Feed Thyself challenge. There's just nothing there to eat yet! The pumpkins look promising, and the lettuce is kicking, but most everything else is still in it's infancy. So our planned FFT start date of August 1st is looking quite unlikely. :(

Recipe: Homemade Cajeta (Goat Milk Dulce de Leche)

2011-07-08T09:02:00.000-07:00

-1 Quart fresh goat's milk
-1 cup sugar
-1/2 vanilla bean, slit lengthwise
-1/2 cinnamon stick
-1/2 tsp baking soda dissolved in 1/2-1 tsp of water

Heat the milk, sugar, vanilla bean and cinnamon stick over medium heat, in a heavy pot. Stir constantly until the mixture begins to boil gently.

Remove from heat, still stirring, and add your dissolved baking soda. The mixture will froth/foam up a bit, but can be stirred down fairly easily.

Return the pot to the heat. Reduce heat slightly (I change the setting from 5 to 4). Continue stirring until you feel like your arm is going to fall off, about 45 minutes to an hour.

At some point during your endless stirring, you should notice your milk mixture beginning to deepen in color. The intensity of flavor increases with cooking time/darkness, so you can decide when the color, flavor and consistency look right to you. I stopped mine at the point where it coated the back of my spoon, and was a butterscotch pudding color.

Pour your finished cajeta into a glass container - you DON'T want to put molten-hot liquid candy into plastic, trust me. The cajeta will keep in the fridge for about a week. Let me know if yours ever lasts that long. ;) You'll also want to get your pan soaking in hot soapy water ASAP, as the caramel is like hardened epoxy once it has cooled completely.

Your quart of milk should have reduced down to about one pint of caramel. Cajeta can be used as a topping (try it with coffee ice cream!), a little sweetness in your coffee, or as my friend Libi says, poured straight down your throat. Enjoy!

Product Review: The Henry Milker

2011-07-07T12:16:00.000-07:00

Hand milking, for me, is an exercise in frustration. Maybe it's because I have mini breeds of goats, with corresponding mini ta-tas, or maybe it's because I'm just an awkward klutz. Either way, I was getting pretty discouraged about our prospects of ever getting milk from our goats. Then, one day while perusing a copy of Dairy Goat Journal (do I know how to have a good time or what?!) I saw it (cue angels singing) - The Henry Milker.

In my more desperate moments of failed hand milking, I'd dreamt of getting my hands on an electric milker. But they are:
a) HUGE - big time overkill for three little goats,
b) Expensive! Three and four figures expensive. Do you know how long I'd have to milk my goats to get $700 worth of milk out of them?
c) Complicated as all get-out. Pulsators, tubes, compressors, yada yada. Too many things to break. And, if you have to have a degree in mechanical engineering to assemble the thing fresh each day, well... it's not for me.

Which is why a Henry Milker was so appealing to me. It has seven parts total - a hand pump, teat cup, two tubes, a quart mason jar, modified jar lid and ring. C'est tout. Now, what they charge you for this simple little set up is a bit of a rip at $139, but I used the code "DAIRYGOAT" at checkout and got $10 off and a spare jar, lid, ring, size small teat cup & pair of tubes, which lessened the sting of the price tag a bit.

Setting up and using the milker were both a piece of cake. Even I can't mangle it too badly when there are only seven parts involved.

The quart jar comes with a lid that has had two hollow plastic spike-like fixtures set into it (I can't, for the life of me, think of the proper word for these things). You set the lid on the clean jar, then tighten it down with the ring. You affix one tube to each of the spike/receivers. One of your affixed tubes will now hook up to the hand pump, the other tube, to the teat cup (a large, blunt syringe with the plunger removed), and then you're ready to milk!

Fritzen, our mini LaMancha herd queen, giving up the goods.

The good stuff!

As far as using the milker, the advice that I have to offer is:

a)After cleaning the udder/teats, you'll need to clear the teat by hand milking once or twice before attaching the milker. This will not only clear any old/funky milk and debris from the orifice, but also encourage your goat to let down her milk. (I also massage the udder a little while washing her up. If all else fails, you can give her a little bump like the baby kids do to get the milk to let down.)

b) You need to be sure to get your teat cup straight on. A bad approach can lead to pinching, which can lead to a kick in the head.

c) Watch the pressure! The literature that comes with the milker advises that you not go above 10 on the gauge (I don't know what the unit of measurement is. PSI?). I've noticed that my does require between 5-7 to flow well. The lower that you can get away with, the better.

d) Let the pressure fluctuate. Once you have the milk going well, letting the pressure fall (and consequently, the milk flow) will not hurt your overall output. In fact, keeping the pressure constantly high without a break can damage the teat over time. I pump mine up until it begins to flow, maintain that pressure level for 10 seconds or so, then take a break from pumping to let the pressure fall gradually. When it hits a point where the flow is down to drips, I pump it back up.

Besides the relative affordability of this milker versus others, and it's idiot-proof operation, the Henry Milker has one additional benefit - cleanliness. I am a germaphobe, and the idea of milking by hand, allowing hair and straw and God-knows-what-else to fall into the bucket while milking really grossed me out. There's also the issue of the doe either stepping in and spoiling, or knocking over the bucket of milk. These are all non-issues with this milker.

I do still filter my milk, because you never know, but I'm far less concerned about contaminants when using this contained system.

So overall, I would recommend this milker for folks who have just a few goats to milk and are slow or inefficient at hand milking. It comes with a 30-day money back guarantee, which seems like a reasonable length of time for a farmer and goat to determine whether or not this sort of set-up is for them. We're using the heck out of it over here, and the does like it a lot better than my clumsy, endless hand milking, so we'll be keeping ours. ;)

Cheese Advice?

2011-07-05T01:01:00.000-07:00

I'm looking for a fairly easy cheese recipe in which I can use a mixture of goat and cows milk. I'm leaning towards Romano or Parmesan, but the whole idea of waiting a year to try my first cheese makes for a rather lame start to my cheesy adventures. I could go for some more instant gratification-style cheese products. Maybe feta??? Does anyone have a recipe to recommend?

We only have about a quart of goat milk right now, so first things first, I'm going to make some cajeta. Cajeta is a Mexican caramel sauce, akin to Dulce de leche. I foresee it having a starring role in my goat milk lattes during our Farmer Feed Thyself challenge next month. If I have to go cold turkey off of chocolate, I hope that I can at least appease my sweet tooth with a down-home caramel macchiato.

Come on out of the woodwork, cheese people. What's a good beginning cheese making recipe that works well with some goat milk in the mix?

Six Ounces of Triumph...

2011-06-30T16:29:00.000-07:00

...look just like this!

Yes, it's only 6 ounces. Six very hard-earned ounces! In fact I can honestly say that I haven't sweated and sworn over an amount of milk this bitty since I was the one lactating.

I would have taken pictures of our inaugural use of the Henry Milker, but even with my three assistant goat wranglers, things were hectic. Gertie was the least willing milker, Chardonnay the least fruitful (I seriously think she shut her milk ducts DOWN) and Fritzen the easiest and best producer. Considering her long history of pig-headedness, who'd have thought?

Our does' milk supply is beginning to wane, so this milker got here just in the nick of time. Now, if I can train my goats (and myself) to be up for using it twice per day, we might just be in business.

My fellow milk maids, enjoying a post-milking water balloon fight.

Container Growing - Hits and Misses

2011-06-28T10:31:00.000-07:00

I came across a link on Dr. Earth Organics' facebook page about how to grow your own ginger root. Cool! Ginger is one of the more expensive, oft-used flavors in my kitchen, so this could potentially rock for me, right?

The instructions are super easy (find them here). Essentially, buy some organic ginger and plant it in good potting soil in your container of choice. Don't let it get too hot/cold/wet/dry, and in a few months, you've hopefully doubled your initial investment. Can it really be that easy?

This is me we're talking about. Does anybody remember the re-generate your celery thing from last summer? That gave me about 3 inches of new, skinny, pale celery before it up and died. Not one of my greatest hits.

Last year's container grown spuds didn't exactly wow either. But that was owing to a few things beyond my control, like my protective bird netting being mercilessly hacked by my chickens, slugs falling from the sky, and us selling the house and moving before the spuds had rightly finished up, amounting to 2 pounds of seed/waste potatoes producing 1 lb, 13 oz of sad little micro-spuds. I guess that the slugs and the hens got the difference.

In spite of my track record, I'm going to give the ginger a shot. It sounds pretty low maintenance, which is half the battle when you're a plant/pet/hairstyle of mine.

I've Got One Sexy Chicken!

2011-06-21T12:50:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, a local author named David Toht came by to take some pictures of our animals for a backyard homesteading book that he's written, due out this December.

He got my name from my cousin who lives up the road just a piece, who's family raises goats and honeybees. David was looking for Americauna/Aracauna chickens and LaMancha goats. Bingo!

So we welcomed him over to photograph our critters, on the condition that I could photograph him, photographing our critters. Here he is at work-

He seemed especially fond of our girl, Rosie the Ameracauna Hen.

Ro-Ro in the snow, November 2010.

He also took lots of pics of Chardy-girl, and those gorgeous blue eyes of hers.

As I said, the book is due to be published in December of this year. I can't wait to see if any of our supermodels made the cut!

If you're interested in pre-ordering a copy of the book, or just checking it out, please click through the following handy-dandy link. ;)

Grow Your Own Challenge - The Rules

2011-06-19T16:10:00.000-07:00

I've read and pondered and researched and thought over the guidelines of this Farmer-feed-thyself challenge that we're gearing up for, and I've whittled things down a bit. Here's where we stand now on the rules and details-

*We still haven't picked a hard and fast date to start, but with the weather we're having (another no-grow spring), I'm thinking that we'll have to wait until August before the garden is giving us much of anything. So for now, let's say August 1st.

*We have massively refined our allowances. We will include -
*Coffee (fair trade, organic)
*Oil for cooking (domestic, organic)
*Seasonings/Spices (organic, fair trade)

*What is fair game -
*Anything hunted, caught, foraged, grown or otherwise produced by ourselves.
*Honey, if I can find someone to barter with. I'm not optimistic. :(

*What we anticipate eating -
*Eggs
*Goats Milk/cheese/butter
*Salmon/crab/clams caught/foraged by Bill & I
*Fruits & veggies from the garden
*Foraged berries, mushrooms, greens, etc.
*Our canned jams & jellies from last summer
*Our homemade beer & wine
*Hopefully, our own apple cider & rhubarb wine vinegar

I just know that the things that are going to kick my butt are the minimal dairy and the almost complete lack of carbs and sugar. I am going to be one bitchy sloth the first few days of this challenge, you can count on that!

I have a feeling that my great goat milking motivator will be that morning cup of joe. I have to have cream in my coffee, ergo, I'll have to milk at least once a day for my wake-up cup. This is the aspect of this challenge that intimidates me the most. Milking has not gone well so far, and the ladies are producing less now than the last time I tried milking. This could be rough.

Is there anything that I'm overlooking here? Do these guidelines sound pretty reasonable? I'm excited and nervous as hell to try this feeding myself thing. Cheer me on, friends. I need all of the forward momentum I can get!

And the winner of GGG Giveaway 3 is...

2011-06-17T16:42:00.000-07:00

Commenter #5, Simcha! This loot is going all the way to Turkey!

Facebook me your mailing address, chicky, so that I can ship you your goodies. Thanks again to all who read and entered!

The New Kid in Town

2011-06-17T13:07:00.001-07:00

Our new roo, a white-crested black Polish, Thunder, aka Thunder-Bunder, Thunderbird.

Contrary to his tough moniker and his dashing good looks, so far Thunder has been striking out with the ladies. He is also extremely shy, and goes hauling-booty into the coop anytime anyone makes eye contact. At least he's not mean.

Our main plan for Thunder-boy is to mate him with Miss Curly, a frizzled hennie of the same breed. The literature on chicken genetics tells us that Thunder & Curl should have around 75% frizzled babies. I'm so excited! The only thing cuter than a frizzled Polish is a frizzled Naked Neck (check out the 6th photo from the top - tell me that's not freaking adorable!), and we'll hopefully get there in another year or two. ;) But our grand plans for frizzled chicks have to wait a while still, as Curly isn't laying yet, and is also still recovering from a bit of henpecking by the other girls. The lovers must, out of necessity, remain apart for the time being.

Thunder, with Curly in the neighboring run. So close, yet so far.

We put Gracie, our golden-laced Polish, in with Thunder for a little bit to see if there was any chemistry between them. THERE WAS NOT. Our mild mannered Gracie had Thunder practically climbing the walls to get away from her. Chicken-hearted indeed!

Even though he's not yet able to fulfill his husbandly duties, it has already been nice to have a roo around again. His feeble, sporadic little cock-a-doodle doo makes this place feel like a farm again. Love live the Thunder Bird!

Bearanoia, the Raccoon Edition

2011-06-15T14:00:00.001-07:00

Fishermen and outdoorsy folks here in the Northwest have a term for that feeling you get when you're on the trail or chest deep in a river, and you get that unmistakable awareness that something huge and toothy is eyeballing you. We call it bearanoia.

I don't know if this phenomenon is unique to the PNW/Alaska/Canada back country, but just about every fisherman I know has a story about hearing (or smelling) a suspected bear, feeling the hair rise on the back of their neck, then suddenly deciding to go ahead and call it a day. I've been there myself a few times blueberry and huckleberry picking. In fact, one of the spots where my Mom and I used to go every year to pick blackberries was a well known haunt for cougars - the big cat kind, not the mid-life tragedy kind - which for whatever reason, don't scare me as much.

Anyway, to finally wander back to my original point, I've been having bearanoia mini-episodes, featuring raccoons.

It started with a daytime sighting of a raccoon in our garbage can. The girls saw the bugger and ran straight in to tell their Dad about it. They've been given many a lecture on leaving wild animals be, especially ones that are acting out of character. A nocturnal animal out and about in the day time is basically the definition of out of character, and is usually indicative of it having a serious illness, like rabies.

By the time Bill got outside with the BB gun, the raccoon had vanished. But he came back, the bastard.

I was loafing on the couch, home alone, with the girls asleep, when I hear noises on the porch. I slink over to peek out the window and see the mother-effer looking me right in the eye and eating my goat vitamins. THE NERVE.

So, I run to get the BB gun, call Bill at work to get a quick refresher on how to load/pump the stupid thing, and charge out the front door, locked and loaded, only to find that Mr. Sneaky has left the building. I double check my critters, especially the chickens to make sure that everyone is locked up well for the night, then head in and try to go back to sleep. Yeah, right.

Raccoons, foxes, coyotes - they are my boogeymen. When I have the slightest awareness of something amiss with my farm's status quo, I go into a hyper-alert mode that is mentally and physically exhausting. And all that it takes to kick off the crazy is one coyote's yip, a fresh fox turd in the chicken's yard or a raccoon sighting. Then I'm up all night, listening for the tiniest peep or squeak indicating trouble. Worse still, when I do hear something that I perceive to be problematic, I wake poor Bill up in a panic to get him to verify or investigate. The poor man has gone coyote tracking in his bathrobe and headlamp more times that I can count, with nary a coyote bagged yet.

So I slept like crap last night, afraid that this rabid S-O-B was going to harm my kids or critters before I could get him. I finally fall asleep, and after forcing myself to wake up to take the kids to school, I pull into the driveway, ready to go back inside and catch a nap. Then who do I see scampering up a cedar tree as I'm getting out of my car? Mr. A-hole.

So like my super huntress Great-Grandma Lizzie-Belle (yep, that was her real name!), I gots my gun and a broom and decided to sit under the tree, staring at it for all I was worth, waiting for Captain Jackhole to show his annoyingly cute face. My plan was to pop him out of the tree with a BB, then once he fell, go caveman on his butt with a broom, pitchfork, rake, soup spoon, whatever.

I never did flush him out. Instead, I spent a good half an hour sitting in my driveway on top of an empty goat kennel, gun at the ready, staring up at a motionless cedar tree waiting, just waiting for that dirty sumbeech to move a muscle and reveal himself to me. Nada.

Bill is out now setting a second have-a-heart trap, this one right on the porch, in case the greedy little sneak comes back for a second helping of goat minerals (Seriously, raccoon? I'm pretty sure I'd eat trash first.) We are baiting with a piece of fruit leather, since my forced viewings of Billy the Exterminator - Scarlet's a superfan - have taught me that raccoons and skunks both like fruity treats. Our other trap, set up by the garbage cans, contains an aged Easter Peep. I'll be interested to see which treat he goes for.

So I'm kicking back and guzzling my coffee, well aware that I'll be up at 2am and pinging on all cylinders, waiting for my showdown with a mentally ill vitamin thief. I've got my headlamp, BB gun and pitchfork at the ready. Bring it.

Mother of five boys, crack shot, and salmon fisher extrordinaire, Great Grandma LizzieBelle and her catch of the day. Steady my hand, oh great and fearless ancestor, so that I may protect my family and flocks from harm and give that filthy raccoon whatfor.

Gearing up for a Challenge

2011-06-09T22:03:00.000-07:00

Ever since reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle a few years ago, I've been mulling over trying for myself one of the book's core ideas - eating only what you yourself grow and produce (with a few guidelines & exceptions) for a specified period of time. I don't look at this like a stunt, but more of a way to challenge myself to eat better and make the best use of what I have. And what better time to start than summer, when the crops are rolling in and the goats are all well in milk?

In theory, it should be pretty easy. In theory. I have eggs for protein and fat, goat's milk for dairy/protein, a fishing fiend of a husband who brings home salmon, clams and crab, and (hopefully) a garden, teeming with fresh greens, berries, corn, tomatoes, carrots, pumpkins, potatoes and squash. I also live in an area with no less than 4 blueberry farms in a one mile stretch. I'm flush with food. Now, do I have the gumption and the willpower to limit myself to eating that and that alone for a while? This is where I get a little shaky.

Bill and I have tossed this idea around a little and come up with a few hitches and fudges -

1) Coffee would have to be permitted. I already buy organic, fair trade coffee, so I don't have too much guilt about letting this one go. And I can get my beans from a fantastic local roaster, Batdorf & Bronson. Besides, I'm planning on doing this during the summer when my kids will be home with me all day. A day without caffeine could get ugly quick.

2) We're not going to make the kids do this with us. A morning without cereal, a summer day without ice cream, we'd have an insurrection on day one.

3) We might expand our food shed area to include food produced within our city. We're talking grown, born, butchered, etc. in Olympia. No doughnuts or Chinese food from downtown, lovely though that would be.

What else are we not thinking of? We'll be doing a lot of physical labor on the farm this summer, so we've agreed at this point to only have the experiment last for two weeks so that we don't run ourselves down too much on a diet with significantly less carbs than our usual pasta and rice intensive fare. Is two weeks long enough? Does that seem too wussy? Have we made too many exceptions? Help us get this ironed out so that we can put our little farm to the test this summer! We're thinking of beginning in July, as the garden should be kicking by then. What say you to all of this craziness?

Granola Giveaway #3

2011-06-09T11:07:00.000-07:00

In celebration of my 200th post, I'm giving away a bag full of granola & farm goodies! Check it out -

This Farm Aid shopping tote is filled with some of my favorite earth-friendly products, an inspirational read and some gardening goodies to get you outside and planting. This package includes-

*Farm Aid "Farmers Kick Ass" shopping tote
*Farm Aid "Farmers Kick Ass" pin
*Alba Botanica Coconut Milk Face wash (Love this!)
*Three dishcloths, hand-knit by yours truly
*Biobag non-GMO, 100% compostable bags for your compost bin
*Ladies size medium Bamboo Gardening Gloves
*"Farm City" by Novella Carpenter (used copy, cuz that's how I roll)
*Miscellaneous heirloom seeds from Victory Seed Company

I'll probably throw a few more goodies in there before I mail this off, but you'll have to wait and see. ;)

All that you need to do to enter is to leave a comment on this post. I'll draw the winner on Friday the 17th, so check back and spread the word! Thanks again to all of my followers and friends for reading.

Good luck!!!

2011-06-02T11:17:00.000-07:00

sitting in my chicken's yard
drinking cold red wine
swallows above dart and swoop

The Goatalympics!

2011-06-01T21:59:00.000-07:00

One of my very favorite animal rescue organizations, New Moon Goat Sanctuary & Rescue, is sponsoring an event called the Goatalympics. I'm seriously thinking about entering a goat or three from my herd, since this is all in good fun and benefiting a great organization, and because even unruly, less-than-perfect goats are welcome.

They have a ton of different categories, both "skilled" and unskilled - obstacle course (aka "bribe a goat"), loudest bleat, prettiest eyes, widest goat, etc. So I'm looking for a little input here - if I were to enter, who should I enter and for which category/event? I can take up to three goats to the Goatalympics, but that might be pushing it for me to handle all three, even with help from the girls. You tell me - should I go? Who should I take and why? I have a small album of goat pics over on my GGG facebook page, but I'll include a few here as well, because like any proud Mama, I'll take any excuse to whip out the pictures of my babies. :)

Behold our potential contenders-

Fritzen, "The Boss-Lady"

Buckley, Teeny & Oreo, Fritzen's babies

Gertie, the Princess

Blue aka Donkeh (with Blackjack)

"Sassypants" Chardy

Archie, the one-horned eating machine

Spike, aka, Sir TurdBurglar

Only does and wethers (castrated males) are eligible, so Blackjack, Barley & Buckley will have to sit this one out. Review the candidates and take a peek through the "goats of happiness" category to get a little more insight into their individual personalities and tell me who should represent Boggy Hollow at the big game!

Waves of Usefulness

2011-05-24T11:59:00.000-07:00

Our house guests have returned home now, and the house is quiet again, which is both nice and a little sad. Hanging with those crazy nephews of mine lets me be the nutty-fun auntie that chases and spoils the little maniacs until we all pass out. Good times!

But now that they're back home and I've mostly recovered from the cold and sinus infection that we all passed around, I finally find myself with a teensy bit of unscheduled time to knock out some more of our honey-do projects and even play outside a little. As my manic energy tends to do, my get-up-and-go has been coming in waves. I work my tail off on something on Sunday, then sleep and snarf down antihistamines and tylenol all day Monday. I don't seem to have a second gear.

Yesterday was my coma-nap day, therefore today is supposed to be a go out and kill it day. Meh.

I'm back to morning goat duty, after a generous hiatus afforded me by my darling husband, on account of my killer stomach bug and the time required for me to ~~bounce~~ crawl my way back to normal. Goat patrol, as we call it, really takes it out of me. Today I had to hike up the hill and back no less than four times (because of something that somebody did/didn't do who will be hearing about it tonight, I promise you.) These old bones can't go from zero to sixty like that! So now I'm taking my well-earned ease with a homemade frappuccino and pondering my next move. Put a few more plants in the garden? Take Spike for a walk on the leash to eat down some Scotch Broom? Take a nap in my lawn chair with a Diana Gabaldon book? Nah, No effing way and hells yes!

Today's wave was short but fast moving. I think I'm back to the trough. :)

P.S. - Look for my a Granola Giveaway coming up very soon, in honor of my 200th post!

Sweet Baby Violet

2011-05-18T14:37:00.000-07:00

About 3 days old

She has her Papa's blue eyes and frosted ears.

Checking out the hay wagon with her Mama, Gertie

Hiding behind the shed

Mid-sproing!

Gert & Vi

The Gert-a-nator Gives Birth

2011-05-09T17:34:00.000-07:00

FINALLY!

She toyed with us for days. A little nesting behavior here, an over inflated udder there, and nada. I had a sinking feeling that she was going to save her labor until I was home alone with all four kids (nephews are here) and no one to help either wrangle kids or stimulate babies. And she almost did, that Turkey!

My girls, chillin' with Gertie, waiting on some baby action.

Bill went up the hill to check on Gert one last time before bed last night and discovered the baby, just delivered. He came down to the house and got me. We waited there for another 30 minutes or so, watching to see if another was coming. Nope, just the one. She was awfully fat for having had just one little peanut in there! I'm sort of relieved that it was just one though, as this is Gert's first, and she's an "older mother" as goats go (four or five by the vet's guesstimate), leaving me feeling a little leery of her instinct/ability to mother her babe. So far so good, with the exception of the baby escaping by accident by walking right through the fence. She's tiny!

So here she is, our as yet to be named baby girl -

About 20 minutes old.

We're not sure yet whether or not we're keeping her. A lot of things depend on whether or not Gertie ends up being a good milker. Let's hope that she's at least better than our other Nigerian Dwarf.

Who, me? I'm straight-up DELIGHTFUL.

So our littlest Mama became a mom on Mother's Day - just barely. Now I'm off to share the good news with proud Papa Scout's owner. :)

We're still pondering about what to name her. Any suggestions?

Happy Mother's Day from Gertie & Baby Girl!

Bracing For Impact

2011-04-26T08:06:00.000-07:00

My brother and sister-in-law and their two beautiful little boys are coming out to ye olde farm for a visit next week. These will be the first extended-stay guests that we've had in the new house, and therefore call for the first ever deep-cleaning of the new, 85 year-old house.

If I didn't hate well water before today (I did), I super, mega officially hate it now. I have to use scary chemicals that I abhor to get the gnarly rusty drip marks off of the bottom of my tub. We condition our water, but apparently enough iron remains that over the space of six months, it can accumulate enough to look like you've been showering in orange kool-aid.

I'm also going to use a little tax-return moolah to spring for a proper vacuum. I've been told that the Dyson pet hair model is the way to go. We don't have hairy indoor pets, but we do have a house full of individuals with eastern European genetics, so the pet hair function may come in handy after all. I am both scared and nerdily curious to see what and how much junk this thing pulls out of my carpets.

In addition to the sprucing up, I need to review my child-proofing. My nephews, God love them, will wait for the second you turn your back to take a pair of scissors to their socks (the 5 year old), draw on your Harley-Davidson with a sharpie (also the 5 year old) or attempt to fly, Batman-style off of the second floor balcony, using a sheet as his cape (come to think of it, that was the 5 year old too). Maybe I just need to hog-tie the big one and the little one and I will just hang out and snuggle?

So I'm in a bit of a nesting frenzy this week. I know that I'm going to drive myself (and by extension, Bill) nuts sweating the details right up until the minute that our guests arrive, but once the initial impression of the place is gelled in their minds, I instantly stop caring about the Martha details and just let it all go and enjoy their company. I'm really looking forward to our two families of four being one noisy herd of eight for a few weeks.

I especially like hanging with my nephews. I grew up in an all-girl house, and only having daughters myself, have sort of missed out on the boy experience. They are NUTS, and I love them for it. Maybe I can channel the energy of the 5-year old, aka, Sir Yaps A Lot, Mr. Sharpie, Doomed Batman, in a fruitful direction? What are the child labor laws in Washington state concerning kindergartners milking goats?

Nah, I'd better not. Knowing him, he'd probably sneak some scissors up there and give Spike an unflattering haircut.

No one looks good in The Rachel. No one.

Be Poo to Your School (My 200th Post!)

2011-04-25T13:59:00.000-07:00

I'm not a PTA Mom. Does that surprise you? Yeah, it doesn't really surprise anyone. I love my kids' school and volunteer there regularly, but I'm just not leadership material. I fall asleep in meetings, I'm bad at making tough decisions and I don't do politics, on any scale.

And so I look for other ways to contribute. This year I will not only be working at our school's annual plant sale, I'll be contributing goods for the sale. You know, seedlings, flowers, veggie starts, animal poop... did I lose you on that last one?

I'd been sort of marinating on this idea for a while now, but I hesitated to throw it out there, lest I sound like a complete yokel-dork. I mustered up the courage to ask the garden gals if they would be interested in my poo (words that I never thought I'd hear myself say, I assure you), and was very enthusiastically received by them. It was a nice feeling, knowing that I am not the only granola poo-coveter in town. You've heard me go on about it before, but allow me to remind you that critter poo, bunny poop in particular is magic. It's dry, it doesn't burn your plants, it has very little odor and the bunnies make it like it's going out of style.

Which is why, come Friday night, My friend Melinda and I will be filling and attempting to "jazz up" little bags of bunny, goat and chicken poop for sale on Saturday. I'm trying to think of some snappy wording for the bags. I've heard people refer to rabbit poop as "Bunny Marbles" or "Cocoa Puffs", but I'm looking for something more exciting and original. All Natural Doo Drops? Compost Thunder? Or in the case if goat poop, which looks exactly like a whole coffee bean, Magic Beans? Crappaccino?

I can't wait to see if my critter poo sells like hotcakes or just gets completely ignored. I certainly hope it goes well, lest I have to carry my unsold doodles back home in shame. It'd really be something if my doo revenue was enough to score something cool for the school gardens. You see that peach tree over there? Bought and paid for with goat turds, my friend!

Yes indeed, I may never be PTA Treasurer material, but I betcha a pitchfork that folks will remember the crazy crap peddling lady for years to come. And thus my legacy to the children of Olympia begins.

Today's the day! I think...

2011-04-22T06:28:00.000-07:00

I've put it off for much too long now, milking day is here.

I'm trying to psych myself up for this ordeal and commitment by trying to downplay the fact that milking dairy animals every day without fail is an ordeal and commitment. I'm sure that someday I will find the whole process of miking my goats peaceful and fulfilling, as ancient poets and shepherds have written and sung of it throughout history, but at the moment it is still awkward and stressful for everyone involved. I'm clumsy, and my mama goats' patience runs thin with me mighty quickly. But regardless, it's go time.

Part of the source of my stress surrounding milking is the equipment issue. Do you have any idea how many odds and ends you need to properly, sanitarily extract and use your goat milk? Pails, strip cups, filters, brushes, washing water, a hanging milk scale, udder wipes, teat dip, etc., etc. It's a whole heck of a lot of stuff to haul up the hill and back, especially for a gravitationally-challenged gal like myself. One slip on that East Bay clay and I'm covered in milk, iodine and mud.

My means of mentally skirting the awkward equipment/fall hazard issue is to drive everything up the hill in the cart of our little tractor. Driving the tractor will also be a first for me. I'm about 5 miles out of my comfort zone right now.

Today, if I live to tell, shall be a real litmus test of my farm-girl skillz. If I don't get kicked in the head, end up wearing warm milk, crash a tractor or lose a limb, I'm going to chalk it up as a win.

We have a Farrrmerrr doon!

2011-04-13T10:32:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the radio silence, I've been laid up this past week with a rousing case of dysentery that I can blame on either an incompetent food service worker or my chickens, the mystery remains.

The culprit was Campylobacter, and let me tell you, a week with this evil little bug in your belly is a fast and effective method for weight loss! And headaches, muscle pain, scorching fever... and lots of other little goodies who's descriptions I will spare you.

The lesson to be taken away from this little tango with toxins is -

A) Handle your food safely. Campylobacter bacteria, according to several sources I've read recently, can be found in upwards of 70% of grocery store chicken samples. So it's there already, and it's your job to kill it by cooking your meat thoroughly and by cleaning your kitchen surfaces and utensils adequately. Campylobacter is actually killed fairly easily, particularly by our stomach acid. But in folks like me, who take acid-reducing medication, the castle doors have essentially been flung wide open to receive the invaders.

B) Handle your livestock carefully. Most populations of live chickens (and other animals - cats, dogs, cattle, etc.) carry Campylobacter in their gut, and are asymptomatic. So even if they're not sick, they can still get you sick. We're pretty intense hand washers over here, but it only takes a few little bacteria to take you out.

I half-suspect that my infection came from caring for a sick little chick (who died of a bloody flux) in my home. I'm a softy. I couldn't leave her outside all by her poor lonesome to die, so we brought her in in a laundry basket and attempted to ply her with fresh grass and electrolyte-infused water to bring her back around to health, but it didn't work. Somewhere during the process, I must have inhaled or swallowed a bacteria, and that was that.

Here we are a week later, and I'm still recovering. The muscle pain, headache and cramps were like nothing I've ever felt before in my life! The doc told me that the toxins were in my blood, muscles and even the tissue surrounding my brain, which is why they had to give me a blue whale-sized dose of dilaudid to knock me out.

I'd long known that the perils of farming are many, but hadn't thought to include among them bacterial assassination attempts. I always figured that when something happened to me, it'd be more like me chopping off a toe with an ax, or having my nose broken by a flying goat hoof, but I guess you can't plan these things. All in good time, all in good time....

Foods that Fight Back - Foraging for Stinging Nettles

2011-03-28T20:42:00.000-07:00

I like to forage for food. Dandelions, berries, mushrooms, you name it, I love to go out and get it. I mean, what's not to love about it? A walk in the woods, accompanied by birdsong, collecting the freshest, most wholesome foods available, all for free. I had been meaning to add stinging nettles to my foraging repertoire for years now, but always managed to somehow miss my opportunity. This year, I finally made it!

This past Sunday I went nettle picking with my beautiful and nature-knowledgeable friend, Kristin, just about a mile from my house. She is a more experienced forager than I, and showed me the ropes of picking stinging nettles. First of all, the window for picking them, like most other wild foods, is fairly small. They are one of the first shoots to pop up in Spring, and transition from tender stalk and leaves to fibrous and inedible giants in the space of a few weeks to a month. Secondly, the nettles, even with their smarting sting, are actually very fragile plants, and need to be harvested with care. The idea that these fierce looking little greens, the sworn enemy of my woodland wandering youth, were in fact delicate and easily killed came as quite the surprise to me. I had not thought of them as anything more than a nuisance, up to now, and as is often the way of nuisances, assumed that they were likely impossible to be rid of. Not so! When harvesting, the general rule of thumb is to pinch or cut just the top few leaves of the plant, taking no more than 4 inches at most (we took about 2 inches), and not pulling on the plants, as they are very shallowly rooted. If you're kind and gentle to the plants, they'll be there for you to harvest your little bit, year after year.

Another obvious fact of stinging nettle collection is that you need to dress appropriately for the occasion. Wear long sleeves, long pants and gloves, and prepare to get stung a time or twelve anyway. The stings aren't really that bad. To me they felt like more of a tingling/foot gone to sleep sort of sensation that lasted for about 24 hours. It's a small price to pay for a heap of free "superfood".

Here in Western Washington, stinging nettles are virtually ubiquitous in our damp and shady woodlands, so it didn't take us long to score enough nettles to fill our bags. In fact, it took less than an hour of wandering through the woods and shooting the breeze with my homegirl for me to gather twelve ounces of nettle tops. Not bad for a morning out in the fresh air!

After bringing my haul of fresh greens home, I set about blanching them. Blanching is one of the two methods used for removing the nettle's sting, the other is drying. I blanched my nettles in boiling, unsalted water for about a minute, then scooped them out and set them to drain thoroughly in a mesh colander set over a bowl. Note that I didn't drain my nettles, and that I went out of my way to save the water that they were blanched in, which was essentially nettle tea. I had every intention of drinking this liquid or saving it as a broth, that is before I found half a dozen poached baby slugs in my pot. They basically shot to the surface within seconds of the greens going in, and were fished out right quick, before the greens had finished blanching, but something about trying to drink tea, laced however lightly with baby slug slime, just wasn't going to work for me. And so, my nettle tea was re-purposed as the liquid in my goats' evening ration of beet pulp. It's supposed to be good for pregnant and nursing mothers, and we have them in spades, so I gave it a go. The goats ate the nettle-y beet pulp as eagerly as ever, and likely scored a few extra vitamins and minerals from it as well. Waste not, want not!

I proceeded to use my freshly blanched, chopped nettles over the next two days in a pesto recipe, as a seasonally fresh alternative to basil, and in some homemade egg noodles, in place of spinach. Both turned out wonderfully and had a fresh, green flavor nearly indistinguishable from fresh-cooked spinach. My twelve ounces of stems and leaves made four dinners worth of pesto, with about 1/4 cup of plain cooked nettles left over to add to my egg noodle dough and eventually, my chicken soup. My noodle and pesto recipes can be found here. For even more nettle recipes, including the one upon which I based my nettle pesto, check out Langdon Cook's Fat of the Land blog. Langdon is a fellow Pacific Northwesterner and a forager extraordinaire. If I can't convince you to get out there and grab your free food, reading his blog is sure to seduce you into trying the food-nerd-meets-nature-nut way of living.

For more info on foraging for stinging nettles and their uses and benefits, check out the following websites:

General Info on Stinging Nettle, Urtica Dioica

More general info on growing, harvesting and using nettles.

The medicinal benefits of Singing Nettles, eHow.com

Recipes using stinging nettle -

Pasta with Nettles, Sorrel & Lemon

Nettle Gnocchi

Nettle Pesto

Recipe: Stinging Nettle Pesto & Nettle Egg Noodles

2011-03-28T18:59:00.000-07:00

I don't tend to post too many recipes on this blog for an assortment of reasons, the main one being that I am a slacker - writing up a recipe is hard for a lazybones like me. It certainly doesn't help that I'm somewhat of a lax cook as well; I almost never measure ingredients, and I add and tweak right up until the food hits the plate. I throw in odd bits of this and that as the spirit moves me, and therefore, A) never make anything exactly the same way twice (which cuts both ways, I assure you) and B) have a hard time putting my ingredients and methods into words that make sense.

But I had to post these recipes because they are not only earth-muffiny as all get out (thumbs up!), but are also great tasting and relatively easy to make. Let's cook with nettles!

My first go with harvesting and cooking nettles had me making a fresh nettle pesto. The recipe that I used was from Fat of the Land. The original recipe can be viewed here. The following recipe is my twist on the FOTL recipe.

Singing Nettle Pesto

-2 cups (cooked) blanched and drained stinging nettles, squeezed-dry and chopped well (about 6 cups raw)
-1/2 cup +/- of Parmesan cheese
-1/2 cup raw, unsalted walnuts
-5 or 6 large garlic cloves, peeled
-1/2 cup +/- olive oil (I usually go for more. Nothing worse than a pasty dry pesto!)
-Fresh squeezed juice from 1 lemon (2 or 3 tbsps worth, I'd guesstimate)
-Salt & Pepper to taste

Just like any other pesto, you basically just pop everything into the food processor and whiz it up to your preferred consistency, adding additional oil and seasonings as you deem appropriate. (If you didn't take to heart my earlier disclaimer about not being a recipe writer, consider the proceeding recipe "Exhibit A". I hope that you'll try it anyway!)

Our second night of cooking with nettles had them in a less highlighted role, as the "spinach" in my homemade egg noodles. If you have a homemade pasta recipe that you like, simply add about 1/4 cup of blanched, squeezed dry, finely chopped nettles to your dough during the initial kneading and mix through well. Boom. That's it. If you're still game to try one of my recipes, well here you go:

Nettle Egg Noodles

-3 cups flour (plus extra for rolling out)
-2 whole eggs
-4 egg yolks
-2 tsps salt
-2-3 tbsps water
-1/4 cup blanched, well drained, chopped stinging nettles

Start with your flour and salt in a large mixing bowl. Make a well in the middle for your eggs & yolks. Gentle scramble the eggs with a fork, slowly beginning to incorporate the flour/salt mixture. Once the eggs and dry ingredients are well mixed, begin adding water in small increments, kneading and squeezing the dough together after each addition. Continue adding water as needed to the dough to reach your desired consistency. Now it's time to fold in the nettles. Knead them into the dough well, until the are mixed evenly throughout. Allow the dough to rest for 10 or 15 minutes before rolling out.

If you're lucky, you have an eager helper, just waiting to make a mess of your kitchen for you. Mine's named Scarlet.

This represents about 1/2 of the noodles produced. The rest went into our chicken soup.

Mmm, Mmm, Good!

The girls gobbled this up, not in spite of the nettles, but rather (at least in part) because of the nettles. They thought that it was pretty cool to eat something so "scary". Having them help with the preparation always demystifies new foods a little too. They always have seconds when they're the sous chef. ;)

They weren't the only ones pleased with these recipes. In fact, I want to get back out there and pick some more nettles while the getting is still good. I want to make some nettle tea. Nettles are purported to have numerous health benefits, including anti-inflammatory and anti-histamine properties and are said to also be helpful in the relief of symptoms of osteoarthritis. They also pack a ton of vitamins A & C, and according to various sources, when consumed as a whole (not in tea form), contain anywhere from 10-40% protein, the second highest plant source, next to hemp.

So this is me, encouraging you to expand your food horizons. Give wild food a try! The satisfaction of foraging your own is parallel to that of growing your own, without having to hoe a single row or live in fear of locusts or late blight. Mother Nature sweats the details, all you have to do is get out there and pick. ;)

Only in Washington State...

2011-03-23T17:05:00.000-07:00

...does the first sunny, 60 degree day after 5 months of rain make a child say "Ugh! I gotta get out of this heat!"

Them's my Western Washington girls, alright. ;)

All geared up for last months Great Backyard Bird Count

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes

2011-03-23T11:45:00.000-07:00

Spring is here! YEESSSSS! Which means that this is the point at which I jump into action and start digging holes and planting seeds like Johnny Appleseed on crack, right? My spirit is on board, my body is trying.

If you've read either of my blogs much, you are probably well aware that a) I have a few annoying health issues and b) That I never hesitate to whine about them. Well this year has been harder than most, and I think that I've finally figured out why. I believe that I may be struggling with Fibromyalgia.

A friend was recently diagnosed, and I, basically completely ignorant of the condition, decided to learn more about it. The list of symptoms was like a point-by-point list of my complaints. Trouble sleeping; arthritis; generalized, for-no-good-reason muscle pains; etc. It's one of those moments where relief and worry slam together. But at least I have an idea about what this is and how I might make it better. Putting a name to the problem is a huge first step. I'm going to talk to my doctor about an official diagnosis and explore which therapies and meds might help me to regain control of my flagging body. But in the mean time, I'm trying like hell to push through. My husband, Bill, has been amazing. He works full time plus, then comes home to wrangle kids and critters, check homework and even cook dinner on those days where I'm really struggling.

I'm determined to get back out there and pull my own weight again though; so here's to a new season and turning a corner. I might move slower and swear under my breath (or right out loud) while doing it, but I'm gonna get out there and play in the dirt anyway.

Recipe: Guinness Chocolate Ice Cream

2011-03-18T21:49:00.001-07:00

As weird as this recipe might sound to you, I am telling you now that this is the best chocolate ice cream that I've ever had. Bear in mind that that is coming from a chocolate snob. And for any of you who might be freaked out by the beer, trust me when I tell you that the Guinness adds an interesting depth and complexity to the custard. It's a nice, very subtly bitter counterpoint to all of the richness of the dairy. I tasted the custard before and after the addition of the Guinness (you know, strictly for scientific purposes) and the beer really does make the difference.

I came across this recipe on the blog of another Michelle, over at Brown Eyed Baker. The following is my modified version of her modified version of a recipe from David Lebovitz's "The Perfect Scoop". I can't help it, I'm a modifier. Sometimes I shoot myself in the foot with my tinkering, but in this instance, I am happy with my finished product. So make it my way or make it her way, just do yourself a favor and make this ice cream!

Guinness Chocolate Ice Cream

This recipe makes 1 quart. I made a double batch with no trouble. ;)

5 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, finely chopped (I used Callebaut)
1 cup whole milk
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
Pinch of salt
4 egg yolks
1 cup heavy cream
¾ cup Guinness Stout
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Put the chopped chocolate in a large bowl and set a mesh strainer over the top, set aside.

2. Warm the milk, sugar and salt in a medium saucepan. In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm milk mixture into the beaten egg yolks, whisking constantly to temper them without cooking them, then pour the warmed egg yolk/milk mixture back into the saucepan.

3. Stir the egg yolk/milk mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula, forming a custard. Pour the custard through the strainer over the bowl of chopped chocolate, catching and discarding any bits of cooked egg. Stir until the chocolate is melted and incorporated. Once the mixture is smooth, whisk in the cream, followed by the Guinness and vanilla extract.

4. Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator (it is recommended that you chill it for at least 8 hours or overnight), then churn in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. (My ice cream maker went kaput on me, so I used the freezer bowl portion of it only. After 6 hours of cooling before freezing, then another 2 hours in the in the freezer (in the freezer bowl), I had a nice, soft-set ice cream.)

Four easy steps, followed by a painfully long wait pacing back and forth in front of the freezer, and you have yourself a wickedly delicious bowl of ice cream. :)

Goats Gone Wild

2011-03-15T20:53:00.001-07:00

The girls went out to feed the goats this evening. They're out there for about 5 minutes when Scarlet comes hauling butt onto the porch, "Mom! Spike's got his head stuck in the fence! UPSIDE DOWN!!!"

Wow. This is a creative new way to annoy me, even for you, Spike. Way to go buddy!

The offender

So then it's my turn to ~~haul butt~~ stumble awkwardly through the mud out to the goat pens. By the time I get there, he is no longer upside down, but he is still good and stuck. I try to thread his horns back trough the same square that he's got his giant head poking out of, only to have Mr. Wonderful start to fight me in earnest. Spike doesn't like having his horns touched; it makes him feel vulnerable and controlled. But I don't see any other way that we're going to get this mess dealt with, so I go behind him, inside the pen and try to wriggle both horns back through the hole while Archie and Gertie bob and weave and jump up on me, with the mistaken idea that I have some sort of foodstuff squirrelled away in my pocket. Three against one and the one is cold, breathless and pissed.

I finally get numbskull's head out of the fence, trudge back in to the house and have just sat down on the couch, when here comes Scarlet, all kerfuffled again. "Mama! Fritzen got out! We need help!"

Son of a &#%&@!!!

By the time I'm halfway out there with some alfalfa snacks to bribe the misfit mama back home, Liv yells down to me that she's already rounded her back up - crisis averted.

This sort of circus reminds me of when the girls were little. The minute you sat down after a long day, somebody needed something, pronto. It got to the point where my delirious sleep-deprived mind started to wonder if my girls had a sixth sense, or maybe some sort of buzzer rigged to the couch cushion to let them know the minute I sat down so that they could time their potty emergencies and midnight pukings just so. And now it would seem that the critters are in on it. No sooner do I lay my head down at night than I hear what *might* be a coyotes yip out back, or the low clang of Spike's bell, just outside my bedroom window, signaling a jailbreak. Some variation on this theme occurs daily. Can mama not get a moment of peace around here, for crying out loud? SERENITY NOW!!!

Graced by Grace

2011-03-13T20:49:00.000-07:00

Our funky little Golden Laced Polish hen, Gracie, finally laid her first-ever egg today. I found it in the nest box and quickly put it back, so that the girls could find it later. They came back from critter patrol running and hooting down the driveway with the telltale white egg.

We now have a full spectrum of egg colors!

My husband's family is of Ukrainian heritage, so Grace's timing is just perfect for us to make some Ukrainian Easter eggs from our own eggs. It's a painstaking process, sort of like Batiking an egg. But some of the designs are pretty amazing. This will be a family time double-whammy of using what we grow and honoring the culture of our heritage.

Thank you, Gracie girl! :)

Dandy Time is Nigh

2011-03-10T15:22:00.000-08:00

The dandelions are back! Why do I sound so happy about the return of the sworn enemy of gardeners everywhere? Wine, baby!

If you see some dandies growing somewhere that you know to be chemical and dog wiz-free, by all means, pick them. One thing to watch out for is the "false dandelions", Cats Ear and Hawks Beard. They usually show up later in the season, but you don't want to accidentally mix them up with the real thing. You can consult a field guide or just use google images to verify what you've got, but odds are if it's this early in Spring, it's a dandelion.

The only part that you need for the wine is the petals, but I usually pop the whole flower head off, then pluck the petals from the head while loafing on the couch, watching Netflix. It takes forever and a day to pick and pluck enough petals for a batch of wine, but I assure you that the end result is worth the trouble!

I'm trying to locate the recipe book that I used for last years batch - still looking. It's probably in storage somewhere still, but don't let that stop you from seeking out a recipe of your own elsewhere. Even if you can't find one you like right now, go ahead and pick your petals and freeze them, because the genuine dandelions aren't actually around for that long. You'll need quite a bit. If I recall correctly, my recipe called for 1 quart of petals (a spaghetti sauce jar full) per gallon of wine - and I made a three gallon batch!

Your neighbors will see you picking weeds on the side of the road and look at you funny (mine did anyway) and your fingers will be sticky and yellow for days after, but with relatively little effort, you can turn a weed into wine! It's the ultimate in upcycling! :)

Farm Girl Truism #1

2011-03-10T15:14:00.000-08:00

Whoever invented the expression "Happy as a pig in $h!t" must have never seen a chicken in fresh straw. They lose their freaking minds over it.

My hens were scratching so feverishly today that they looked like they were moon-walking through the coop. It's nice to be surrounded by at least a few beings that are so easily pleased. ;)

Hangin' with Norbert

2011-03-09T09:27:00.000-08:00

When it rains so much that the frogs have had enough, it's wet.

I found young Mr. Norbert, here, on my porch, jamming himself into a corner of my door frame, presumably to escape the weather. I relocated him to the porch railing next to the boxwood in the hope that he could find a less squish-prone place to hole up.

Onward, Norbert! Your twenty-thousand wives and children in the bog are fretting over you! Skeedattle!

This is what my bog frog chorus sounds like on a sunny day. Multiply it by ten or twenty and you've got an idea of what a rainy night sounds like here!

In addition to Norbert and his kind seeking refuge on my porch and elsewhere, I've noticed a disturbing spike in the number of displaced, dehydrated newts in my basement. How are you getting in there little dudes? Does the appeal of the Man Cave cross lines of both phylum and culture, luring you in with it's eau de homebrew and fish bait? I love you little amphibians, but it has been well established that critters in my care must be tolerant of some level of incompetence on my part, and you, my friends are just too darn fragile.

So scamper on! Chill on the porch or hide out in the basement if you must, just don't forget to let yourself back out when you're done. And don't hide in my boots! That scenario doesn't end well for either of us.

Running on Empty

2011-03-08T22:22:00.000-08:00

Is it Spring yet? Because I find myself doing lots of Springtime chores lately, yet I can't help but notice that I'm still needing to wear 5 layers of clothing while doing so. I'm always Winter-weary by late February, but it's March now. My sunshine is overdue! I'm ready for a 50 degree day. Is that really asking so much?

Since assuming the morning critter patrol duties solo, I've noticed that I hit my mid-afternoon lag a little bit harder than usual, which is saying something, since I am an Olympics-grade napper anyway. The exponential expansion of our animals has me running hither and yon morning, noon and night to water, feed, visit, clean and love on my critters. I enjoy the hell out of it, but my back is killing me and most nights I can barely stay awake long enough to get the kids in bed. So this is what a hard day's honest work feels like! But I am a delicate flower and this - how do you say? - manual labor is busting my chops. I foresee an awkward adjustment period...

I've got the skills (sort of) and the desire to whip this place into shape, I just need that last little piece of the puzzle - the oomph. Where art thou, oomph? You're not at the bottom of my fourth cup of coffee, I checked there.

A Package of Peepers!

2011-03-07T11:47:00.000-08:00

My chickies are here! All 28 of them! That's a lot of chickens! What was I thinking!?!

They are Uber cute, I will give them that, but the peeping. Dear God in heaven, I'm going to lose my mind.

One of these babies is a free, exotic chick, variety unknown. I can barely tell the difference between the various types that I specifically chose, so I have no idea which one is Mr. or Miss. Mystery Bird.

The few that can be identified clearly from a mile away are the Turkens/Naked Necks. The expression "So ugly, it's cute" comes to mind here.

Does this little guy/gal look like a baby vulture or what? I almost had my friend's 4 year-old convinced that we had a baby pterodactyl. Almost.

As you can see in the video, all of these babies came in a surprisingly small box, and are still adjusting to the relative wide-openness of the trough, but tending to clump up together. Every so often a brave soul will wander over the water dishes and give them a tentative peck, with some of the more quick-witted and worldly among them successfully managing to master the skill of drinking. Shortly I'll have to sit down with them one by one and show them the dip-and-tip maneuver to get everybody up to speed on drinking.

The hot tub room, home of the broken hot tub, and previously the most useless room in the house, has now become our makeshift nursery. It is presently inhabited by 7 bunnies and 28 chicks, and will shortly be joined by my seedlings that I will be planting any day now. Things are really humming along now - this Spring is going to be NUTS!

Well I did say I wanted Spring

2011-03-02T09:43:00.000-08:00

Just not this kind.

Seriously, earth? SERIOUSLY?!? I have water enough to drown an elephant coming down and now I've got burbles of it coming up.

And keep in mind that this wasn't even in the lowest point in the pasture. Not by a long shot. I guess that we won't have to worry about our well running dry any time soon. (Frantically knocking on wood now.)

And now, on an endless loop in my head, sung to the tune of "In the Ghetto"

And the rain's coming down,
And the spring's perking up,
And a whiney little goat bleats "Feed me up!"
In the Hollow (in the Hollowwww)

You're welcome. ;)

Prince Charming hath lost his Charms

2011-02-25T18:33:00.000-08:00

Our big boy bunny, Prince Charming went in for his neutering today. For the full story, see The Saga of the Boggy Hollow Bunnies on ye old Bog Blog.

Suffice it to say that PC was a trouper, and was briefly reunited with his wife & kids before retiring to his own separate kennel for the night. He will have to remain apart from the other rabbits for about a week so that his incision can heal undisturbed. Then he can go back to life with his family without risk of exponentially expanding his family once per month.

But enough with the dirty details, bring on the cute bunny pics!

Buckets of Fonzy

2011-02-16T09:24:00.000-08:00

Today my friend, Simcha, over at Turkish Cooking, Everyday has posted a recipe for a Turkish liver dish, Ciğer Kavurma. She prefaces her recipe with a story of a childhood memory of having to choke down some Liver & Gravy, and disliking it completely ever since. But being cajoled and force fed something that you find horrifyingly repulsive is sort of the universal childhood experience; a right of passage, if you will. We all bear the scars. Simcha says that she has come to terms with liver and actually likes it prepared in a particular way now. I cannot say the same. Here is the story of my first and last taste of liver.

My sister and I were staying with our Aunt & Uncle, on their small farm. Being suburban kids, this was a rather novel experience for us. They had chickens, horses and cattle. As little girls, we were used to every "pet" having a name, and were shocked to find that no one had bothered to name any of the cows. We put our heads together and came up with Laverne & Shirley for the ladies, and Fonzy for the bull. Thinking back, I can remember my Aunt being like, "Ok, but....", but we, oblivious to the eventual fate of the moo-moos, became somewhat attached - albeit from a distance.

Bulls aren't known for their gentlemanly behavior, and Fonzy expedited his exit when he took it upon himself to try and gore my cousin's beloved horse to death. I can't recall if the horns hit the mark, but I do remember that the horse got knocked into a whole mess of barbed wire, hard. Fonzy had just put himself on the fast track to freezer camp.

Memories can be tricky - I'm honestly not sure if I'm remembering this 100% correctly or if my experience has been influenced by repeated viewings of Napoleon Dynamite, but as I recall, our school bus was just rolling up to drop us at the driveway, in full view of the pasture, when the shot was fired.

Trauma, tears and worry for poor, widowed Laverne & Shirley followed in tidal waves of 7-year old emotion.

It was either later that same day, or perhaps the next that the real butchering began. Bits were here and there. There were multiple 5-gallon buckets in the kitchen filled with various guts and whatnot. It was horrifying.

In stark contrast to the scene in the kitchen was the smell wafting out from the stove top as my Aunt made dinner. I remember that the aroma of whatever it was she was cooking was so good. Like pot roast or chicken soup, something warm and homey, the perfect balm to my emotional afternoon. I was starving!

When dinner was served up, it was liver and onions. It looked pretty sketchy, but the tasty smell and a few stern looks shot my way by my Aunt and Uncle compelled me to tuck right in. From the very second that that first bite hit my tongue, liver and I were done for good.

I honestly don't recall the taste. It may have been incredible. All I can remember is the texture in my mouth, and flashing back to pictures of the buckets in the kitchen. Buckets of Fonzy. Even if I could have got past the weird, creepy texture of the liver, the psychological trauma probably would have been enough to stop me eating it anyway. I put my fork down and sat their trying my damnedest to swallow that bite. I got it down but simply could not take another. I was threatened, bribed, and finally, warned that I'd be spending my entire night at the table in front of that rapidly cooling plate of Fonzy if I didn't just buck up and eat it already.

I spent the rest of the evening at the table, as did my sister.

Guess what was for breakfast the next morning?

My Aunt & Uncle were old school like that. I don't recall whether or not we went without breakfast of any kind, but I can tell you for sure that neither one of us ate that stone-cold, day old liver. I can only imagine that later that day I must have attacked my school lunch like a demented piranha, grateful for my fake mashed potatoes and instant gravy like I'd never been before.

And that is why I just say no to liver. It's the texture, the idea, the mental associations, all of it. I can't eat it in any form - pate, fois gras, no way, no how. That is my general approach to all organ meats really. It's not snobbery, it's the mental & textural issues that I can't overcome. Given the choice, I'd rather eat my napkin.

Look Who's New in the Hollow, Winter 2011

2011-02-14T20:24:00.000-08:00

Valentine, born 2/14/11

Oreo & Buckley, born 2/14/11

Hop, born 2/10/11

Barley, born 2/10/11

Surprise! Eight(?) baby bunnies, born sometime late this past week.

Hop & Barley trying to figure out this whole "nursing" thing

Kisses for Mama from Barley boy :)

And Even More Babies!

2011-02-13T19:57:00.000-08:00

I was sure that ~~Wide Load~~ errr.... Fritzen was going to pop while I was out of town on my girls weekend, but she wasn't the one to bless us with babies this week, instead we got MORE BUNNIES!

I don't have any pictures of these little fuzzles, because Mama & Papa bunny are not letting us get too close to their bun-buns just yet, but I will try again tomorrow. Either the last litter were born premature, or these guys have somehow been hiding in their orchard grass/bunny hair nest longer than just one day, because from what little I saw of them, they are significantly bigger and are also ever so slightly furry already. Scarlet, who "discovered" the bunnies, has her eye on a white one that she wants to name "Milky-Silky". We'll have to see about that...

I can't believe that they re-bred so quickly! The first litter was born on January 8th, and it's supposed to take 31 days for mama to gestate a litter, meaning that she got back in the family way within about 5 days of delivery. Aye chihuahua!

We're not sure yet if we're keeping any of the babies or selling them all, but one thing is for sure: Prince Charming is about to lose his charms. Sorry pal, we can turn a blind eye to getting down with your sister ~~once~~ twice, but this isn't "that" kind of place. And unless timothy hay and alfalfa pellets start falling from the sky, we aren't going to be able to keep all of these mamas and babies in food.

Sooo.... who needs a bunny? ;)

Baaaabies!!!!

2011-02-10T13:50:00.000-08:00

I knew it! Chardy was ready to pop! Thank goodness that she waited until I was home from my morning walk before she did. Come see our babies! :)

This is "Baby Boy", the firstborn. He has his mother's bonny blue eyes! He's also quite the rascal, already having gotten himself stuck in the fence once, and apparently confusing my exposed lower leg for his mama's udder, follows me around licking and butting my calf. Not gonna happen, Sir.

This is "Little Girl" she was born second. She has amber-colored eyes (I think) and is the heartier of the two.

Mama Chardy checking out her babies.

Blackjack is very curious about the babies.

The birth was fairly quick and Chardy was a trooper throughout. For those of you interested in the more scientific/graphic version of events, hop on over to The Bog Blog later this evening for video and additional details about the birth itself.

I'm a Goat Grammy! :)

The Battle Hymn of the Chicken Mother

2011-02-09T13:53:00.000-08:00

Today my mood/health pendulum has swung back in the direction of blehh. I'm having another one of my sleep-a-thon weeks, and my dag-gum sinuses are back at it again. I feel very guilty on days like these when I am a total sniffling, snorting couch potato, even knowing that my fatigue is legit, because I feel like I'm not giving 100% to my family, critters, friends and other commitments. I baled on being an usher at Junior Programs today, now that, my friends, is lazy.

But laziness and fatigue don't win the day altogether. When I reflect on what I get done around here, even on a sick day, well, I don't feel so bad. Here's what I did today -

6:30 - Wake up, shower
6:55 - Wake kiddos
7:00 - Loaf on the couch half asleep, directing children to eat their breakfast and get a move on.
7:30 - Additional child badgering. Seriously, who takes 30 minutes to eat a piece of toast?
7:40 - Send kids out for critter patrol, start preparing goat rations.
8:00 - Go chip frozen goat water. Attempt to top off goat water, only to find that the hoses have all frozen overnight. Bring a 5-gallon bucket into the shower to fill with warm water.
8:05 - Carry 40 pounds of sloshing water a few hundred yards through semi-frozen mud to very thirsty goats.
8:20 - Kids finish getting ready for school as I bellow reminders to pack library books and brush teeth.
8:30 - Drive kids to school.
8:40 - Fall asleep on the couch while Facebooking. :(
10:30 - Wake up in a panic remembering that I'm supposed to be at Jr Programs in an hour. Decide to beg out, since I feel like I've been kicked in the face by an elephant, and could go for another nap.
11:00 - Finally give up on 2nd nap out of guilt for not having done laundry or gone to give my critters a proper visit yet today. Grrr...
11:10 - Bring snacks to the goaties and get my snuggles, bring bread and lettuce to the hens (who are locked in the run do to high hawk activity) and am greeted with soft clucks and much flapping.
Noon - Start laundry that I should have done yesterday. Oops.
Noon 'til 2ish - Drifting throughout the house doing weird little odds and ends that I'd never really think about as "chores", per say, like misting my shiitake mushroom patch, sterilizing the syringes for Chardy's antibiotic shots, digging up all of the books and dvd's that need to be returned to the library (Seriously - with the late fees I pay, they could build a wing of the library in our family's name.), taking out something for dinner, composing a grocery list, etc., etc.

Not too bad for a lazy day! It sure as heck helps to have a very supportive husband, kids who are old enough to dress themselves and tell time, a pizza man on speed dial and a lot of very supportive friends and family. They carry through my physical/emotional funks until I can get myself sorted out again.

So next time you get frustrated with yourself for not being on top of your game, take a minute to really think through what you've done with your day. We do more than we realize, even when we're not 100%. And it's worth remembering that acclaim and perfection aren't really what mothering is about. I'll take my loving, imperfect, spunky lovebugs over uptight, overachieving, high strung superstars any day. I am a Chicken Mom. I fawn over my babies, but don't hold them so close that they can't experience the world for themselves. I try to make the best nest that I can for them, but encourage them to also seek their own adventures, often against my own better judgement. I let them know that I love and accept them a million different ways, and they do the same for me. I'm allowed lazy days on the couch, because of the people and support systems that I am surrounded with, two of whom I gave birth to. They take me as I am and I them, or we all try to at least. They are growing up to be good people with good hearts and love and empathy to spare, and imperfect me and my underachieving ways had a hand in that. Take that, Tiger Mom.

And the baby's name is......

2011-02-05T23:46:00.000-08:00

...Blackjack! Before we even really had a chance to tally up the votes, the girls suddenly took to calling him Blackjack, and so he was named. He is unfortunately hard to photograph because he is so timid, but I have included a few snaps below. Visit our Boggy Hollow Farm blog for the full deets on our new herd, including a few more photos.

And now, more Blackjack cuteness! :)

Tell our President to stop GMO alfalfa!

2011-02-01T11:52:00.000-08:00

Here is a link to a site called Take Action, (which I found via Organic Gardening Magazine) hosting an email campaign to plead for President Obama's intervention in the scheduled release of genetically modified alfalfa. If you value the very concept of organic, unmolested foods, then stopping GMO alfalfa from being released is imperative.

Alfalfa is the mainstay of most dairy animals as well as other creatures - anything that eats grass, hay or pellets - cows, sheep, goats, horses, rabbits, even guinea pigs and hamsters - are consumers of alfalfa to some degree. Genetically modified alfalfa presents a risk to our country's ENTIRE alfalfa supply, as it's pollen can easily be spread and contaminate neighboring organic/non-GMO alfalfa, as has been the case with GMO soy.

Montsanto's GMO products have a long and ugly history of destroying biological diversity and wiping out organic/non-gmo farms with their legal bullying. (Google "Montsanto" and note that the auto-fill result #2 is "Montsanto evil".)

I could rail on this topic for days, but will instead simply ask you to look into it for yourself and offer you some resources for doing so.

Movies (Most of which are available through Netflix, if not your local library.)

*Food Inc.
*The Botany of Desire
*Food Matters

Books (Some of these books are old favorites, some have come highly recommended and are on my library waiting list.)

*The Omnivore's Dilemma
*Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
*Deeply Rooted: Unconventional Farmers in the Age of Agribusiness
*The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture

Online

* Wikipedia's entry on GMO's A basic introduction to concept & process genetically modifying organisms.
*Organic Farming Research Foundation
*Non-GMO Project Information on third party certified, GMO-free products and information about the risks involved in growing and using GMO crops.
* Agricultural Giant Battles Small Farmers, CBS News
*OrganicConsumers.org A call to action against Montsanto and the Obama administration's green-lighting widespread use of GMO seed in agriculture, and to require "truth in labeling" of products produced with genetically modified plants and animals.

Here is Take Action's pre-written letter, including my additions (the last two paragraphs) below. If you are as impassioned about this matter as I am, I urge you to send your own letter and get the word out to other to please do the same.

Dear President Obama,

The USDA has approved Monsanto's Roundup Ready genetically engineered alfalfa. This is the wrong decision and will likely lead to wide spread contamination of other crops, including organic alfalfa. You have the power to stop this. I urge you to reject the USDA's approval of genetically engineered alfalfa.

I care about the integrity of the food I eat, and don't want organic and other non-genetically engineered crops to be contaminated by genetically engineered alfalfa. Please take immediate action to stop this approval.

Once this frightening genie is out of the bottle, there is no going back. Please don't let hard working, small organic farmers like me and my family down by forever tainting American alfalfa solely for the benefit of a corporation who has no one's interests at heart but their own.

I have faith that you will do the right thing and stop GMO alfalfa from being released. Please don't let us down!

Sincerely,
Michelle Jackson,
Boggy Hollow Farm

SPEAK NOW and stop this irreversible agent from permanently altering another precious life form! Save your food!!!

It's a Boy! And a girl and a girl and a girl...

2011-01-30T21:24:00.000-08:00

No, the Gertster didn't have babies yet (that is if she is pregnant at all, it's still impossible to tell.) We got a little impatient with the uncertainty of goat fertility and decided to look for some additional does that were for sure pregnant. And hooboy did we find them!

We found a breeder of Nigerian Dwarves and Mini Lamanchas on craigslist, and decided to go check out a pair of his bred does. Long story short, we ended up with the two bred mini lamancha does, and a Nigerian Dwarf doe and her baby buckling. I don't have any pictures of my own to share yet, but the link to the website of the breeder shows our ladies and gentleman.

Dreamcatcher Ranch

Our ladies are Fritzen, Chardonnay, Blue Steel (who will probably be known as Blue from here on out, poor thing) and Blue's baby boy, who has yet to be named, which brings me to the point of this here post. Check out our little man and let us know what you think his name should be.

Photo by Wayne Kiser, Dreamcatcher Ranch

Please cast your vote via comment from the following choices-
*Angus
*Blackjack
*Fergus
*Blackberry (the girls' choice)

I don't know why I'm so partial to the Scottish names for my goats, but it just seems fitting that an intense wee man have an intense wee name. Picture it Fehrrrrrrrrgus! Cohm an' git yer grrrain, lad! See what I mean? It just works.

Anyway, I'm looking for a little outside input, since we are completely indecisive on the matter. So leave a comment and be heard!

More info about our new, ginormous herd, pictures and the results of the great naming question to follow soon. :)